Silaj. Rhymes with collage. I’ve always had a dream of starting an outdoor brand. It typically didn’t go much further than that – just a thought in the back of my head. I had a few names in mind, did some logo design and that was the end of it. I always thought of it a personal brand for me – but not me. For people who have worked with me in the past, I’m not typically the person in the conference room who will blurt out solutions without first understanding the problem. I don’t really like to be in the spotlight – as I’ve gotten older and social media has ebbed and waned, I’ve been very comfortable with anonymity and doing my best work behind the scenes. This is more of a personality trait, but I don’t like to toot my own horn, I’d rather be the silent crusher behind the scenes. It’s where I’m more comfortable.

So the brand is almost like a proxy for my brand. Somewhat aspirational, but maybe does define how I think about the world. I’m still working through that I want it to be. But I’ve taken some steps.

It would be remiss to not call out the my assistant. Their name is Claude. And that’s exactly how I’ve used Claude to move this project forward. As a sounding board, as an assistant to execute things that I find onerous.

My workflow has changed quite a bit over the past few months. I’m using different tools, tracking multiple projects at once. I think as a creative, behind the scenes crusher, having an AI agent as an assistant has allowed me to move from idea to execution at a blistering pace. I’m sitting down to write this post because I’ve already dispatched my todo list for all projects and I need to reset for the next phase.

I find myself learning new ways of working and discovering best practices outside of my area of expertise. A couple of perhaps obvious learnings for me about how I’ve been working:

  1. I don’t command an agent to do something, I ask the best way to solve a problem or achieve this goal. I explain what I’m trying to achieve. This has opened up new ways of thinking about a problem and gives me foundational expertise to move to the next step.
  2. I always ask if the agent has any questions or clarifications before we start any work.
  3. I take the results with a grain of salt and try to maintain some level of objectivity with the results – after all, it’s typically telling you what you want to hear.

For this first phase of Silaj, I started with basic brand and identity work, including brand guidelines and voice and tone guide. Then defined brand values (which is a reflection of my values). And finally to build some awareness and to introduce the brand, and landing page.

Not sure where it’s going to go. I have some ideas, but I’m pumping the brakes before I start to move in one direction or another. I need to think carefully about how to approach products, the brand, content marketing. At this point I’m just having fun and following my dream 🙂

We saw Stand by Me Live last week and it was just great to see the movie again and then hear the behind the scenes stories from the cast. I didn’t realize until the end that it was a Rob Reiner movie. I had forgotten. Highly recommend for a kick of nostalgia. This song has a quote from Chris Chambers (River Phoenix) in the junkyard scene.

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