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In communicating their brands, businesses need to tell a compelling story that connects with its audiences on an emotional level. Every story requires a clearly understood central character with which people can identify and create a long‐lasting emotional bond: the brand persona. Without a strong brand persona, the brand narrative lacks a focus. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to identify a brand persona that captures a brand's emotional story and builds long‐lasting value for a business.

This article defines branding and explores how to construct a story and persona that is relevant, important, differentiating, and motivating. It explores what makes a good story and a good brand persona, how to understand and connect to an audience's implicit needs. Importantly, the article discusses new learning in neurology and how to communicate so that a brand speaks in an integrative fashion to both right‐ and left‐brain thinking.

Companies that do not telling a compelling and consistent brand story that speak to both the rational and the emotional needs of audiences risk creating a shallow, short‐term “brand” that is easily destroyed by external factors. A strong brand story connects at a deep emotional level that is difficult to disengage. This brand story and the brand persona must be tended to, invested in, and go beyond “words” in order to ensure long‐lasting and real value.

Most brand work focuses on developing an understanding of explicit attitudes and developing messaging based on what people “say” they think. This article discusses a process by which implicit attitudes are explored in order to construct brand stories and personas that connect on deep, emotional levels.

In this study, I examined the psychosocial factors of habitus and cultural capital, that rural African American students employ to persist and enroll in college after high school. The purpose of this quantitative inquiry was to gain insights from a rural, Title I, and predominantly African American high school and its influence on students' postsecondary education and how educational preparation programs can provide support to create more equitable outcomes through programs and practice in K-12 settings similar to the school studied. This study used the Survey of Attitudes and Belief (Nora, 2004) to determine the significance of the relationships between the habitus (a student's values and belief systems as developed through one's circumstances or socialized dispositions) and cultural capital (a student's accumulated resources with respect to college, factors that influence college choice). The survey was administered to 184 students at a rural, predominantly African American high school in the south eastern part of the United States. Of the 184 participants, 45% (n = 82) identified as African American and were used in the statistical analysis performed in this chapter. The statistical analysis conducted in this chapter included descriptive analysis, correlation, and multiple linear regression. I found that rural, African American students need additional precollegiate experiences, guidance around colleges and careers, and leadership opportunities.

To provide the author's opinions about key issues in strategy and the future to the readership, in a humorous way.

Opinion column.

Review of three recent books relevant to critical business issues

Speculative, and based not on rigorous research but on the author's experience of planning engagements across a wide variety of private and public enterprises.

Alerts readers to three good books.

Expresses opinions that the author believes have not been expressed in quite this way before.

In the manufacture of ammonium sulphate, whether by using evaporators or saturators, the erosive effect of crystals present in solution, the low sulphuric acid concentrations usually present, and the relatively high temperatures of operation give rise to serious corrosion problems which begin at the drawing board stage of design and continue through all stages of manufacture. These corrosion problems are discussed in detail in this article and advice is given on materials of construction, including stainless steels, nickel alloys, rubber‐lined mild steel, lead, silicon irons, aluminium and a number of plastics.

In 2005 Manchester United was taken over by US businessman Malcolm Glazer, in part because of the club's brand name prominence in the global sport of soccer. This paper examines how Manchester United rose to a pre-eminent position in world football through its on-field performances and its off-the-field management strategies. It shows how the club took its storied history into world markets to take full advantage of globalisation, the opportunities extended through the English Premier League's reputation and developments in global media technologies. Astute management of club resources is identified as the major factor in global brand management.

In this socio‐economic climate there may still be budget for talent development, but it might not be as much as we have grown accustomed to. There is a growing need for effective, sustainable and prudent programs: the question is “how?” This paper aims to address this issue.

Through the author's work with clients in industry, services and government, five key talent development principles are distilled, tested and evaluated.

There are various, sometimes conflicting, ways to determine who is of value within an organisation. HR departments are unlikely to address talent management as an integrated process. The form and purpose of talent development efforts are frequently mismatched. Preferred learning styles and the design of talent programs are often at odds. Talents have the potential to be much more engaged in and meaningful to their organisation.

Clarify what “talent” means in your organisation by formulating a crystal clear policy. Perceive talent management as an integrated process and start organising it as a coherent effort, involving all human resource departments. Fulfil a clear and present organisational need with your talent development efforts. Offer mentoring by true role models and thus enhance the talent's organisational “know‐how” and business insight and accelerate their development. Harness the power of the talent pool, because talents working in teams could offer your company a huge and largely untapped cognitive surplus.

The five key principles of talent development and the 25 decisions will aid human resource professionals in assessing or designing their own talent, leadership and career development trajectories.

In Information: The Key to Effective Management published by MCB University Press (1989, ISBN 0 86176 443 9), Bob Norton and Malcolm Peel argue that the role of information within management is in the throes of dramatic transformation. It is vital that managers act on the implications of this change if they are to maintain their market position. While information technology continues to expand at an experiential rate, it is an extension of what has gone before and should be understood in this light. Managers need to learn to take advantage of the resources available to them in order to remain well placed — yet they suggest that the librarian is still well positioned within the overall situation.

It is widely believed that, during the neoliberal era, labor has become weaker and capital has become stronger. This chapter argues the opposite is true. Only if class struggle is reduced to the economic struggle to improve our position within capitalism – as opposed to the political struggle to overthrow it – can workers’ loss of agency be considered a fact. In every other respect, this belief is false. When uprisings against corrupt plutocracies, worldwide mobilizations sparked by George Floyd’s murder, youth rebellions against the capitalist destruction of nature, struggles of millions of women for reproductive rights are seen for what they are – expressions of class struggle – it becomes clear that transition to socialism is not only necessary, it is also possible.