Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

Steve Jobs is perhaps the most competitive human being I have ever met in my life, and yet I would argue one of the most artistic human beings I have ever met in my life. You can trash the movies all you want, but they do have an artistic component. And yet brutal competition knows no peers when it comes to Hollywood.

Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors - or your colleagues. What have you done lately - this week - to make yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say is your greatest and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note) personal trait?

The top athletes are consummate pros who work obsessively at their craft. Approach yours the same way.

The delivery and presentation media are important, and each format has its advantages and disadvantages, but ultimately I just want to read what I want to read, when and where I want.

Appreciation, applause, approval, respect - we all love it!

As a consumer, you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you.