Marty Neumeier is a best-selling author and speaker who writes on topics of brand and design. Today Marty spends most of his time lecturing all over the globe about the role of creativity and innovation in the creation of relevant and meaningful brand experiences.  Marty has written several best-selling books including The Brand Gap which outlines how to bridge the distance between business strategy and design; ZAG which introduces “onliness” as the true test of a brand strategy; and The Designful Company which offers leaders a blueprint for building a culture of innovation through design thinking. ZAG was named one the “100 Best Business Books of All Time.” In 2013, Marty published Metaskills: Five Talents for the Robotic Age, a deep dive into the future of workplace creativity. He then wrote The 46 Rules of Genius as a “quickstart guide” to “Metaskills.” His latest book The Brand Flip is the long-awaited sequel to The Brand Gap. It offers a simple formula for addressing the changes brought by social media and the rising power of customers. Marty was also commissioned by Google Brand Lab to write the Dictionary of Brand, a relational glossary containing 500 interconnected terms in brand strategy, advertising, design, innovation and management. The Dictionary of Brand is the first step in creating a “linguistic foundation” -- a set of terms that allow specialists from different disciplines to work together in a larger community of practice. When Marty is not lecturing or writing, he is facilitating inspirational workshops or providing consulting services to companies the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Skype, Twitter and Patagonia. In this Podcast, Allan and Marty talk about the difference between brand and personality, which skills make up the best leader, the importance of empathy and the power of a well-written email. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/292/.