L to R: Amy Kaheri (Detroit Soup), Veronika Scott (The Empowerment Plan), Hajj Flemings (Brand Camp U), Mark E. Gilman (Decus).

It’s great to see so many people coming together, flying in from all areas of the country to Detroit. We are about growing our communities with personal branding. This event is an outgrowth of the innovative minds around the metro Detroit area. How inspiring to see men and women from various backgrounds and expertise building our infrastructure. We are making not only a difference in our neighborhoods but in our online community as well. We are currently ranking #1 in trending topics on Twitter. See below:

#BCU12 is now the top trend in #Detroit! Awesome work@BrandCampU and @HajjFlemings! pic.twitter.com/tUiXDDaD

Mayor Bing is getting in on the action too!

Detroit is a great place to start your tech startup #BCU12

Hey! Our hashtag, #bcu12, is now the #1 trending tag in Michigan. Go Brand Camp,

Getting off to a great start at Brand Camp! Audience is excited and everyone is networking.

Super Bowl XLV has come and gone, the Packers won, and all we have left is the discussion from the Super Bowl Ads. I wasn’t blown away by most of the Super Bowl ads but there was one ad that totally captured by attention.

That ad was, ‘Imported from Detroit’ it was produced by Wieden + Kennedy one of the coolest ad agencies in the world. They are known for the work they have done historically with Nike and heir most recent success with the Old Spice commercials.

The two-minute Super Bowl commercial, ‘Imported from Detroit’ with local rapper Eminem captured the essence of Detroit and connected with viewers worldwide with over 4M views in YouTube.

Stats from the Ad

• Brand Bowl Recap: The people voted with their tweets and selected Chrysler, ‘Imported from Detroit’ as the overall winner. (Score: 90, Tweets: 32,514, Sentiment: +16.5%)

• YouTube Views: 4,514,346 (as of 02/09/11)

According to the Wall Street Journal Chrysler and the Chrysler 200 spiked on auto-shopping web sites. Edmunds.com reports that research on Chrysler models on its web site jumped 328% after the ad appeared.

Does this mean that Detroit is back? Does this mean that Chrysler is back? I don’t think any one commercial alone saves a city, state or company. But I will say the commercial did exactly what it was suppose to do. Create buzz (mostly positive), engage potentials customers, get people sharing content, and driving traffic to their site.

I don’t know how many 200’s Chrysler will sell but I do know but the tagline, ‘Imported from Detroit’ is still ringing in my head.

Ask ten people what they think about branding and personal brand, and you are likely to get ten different opinions on the subject. It’s an ongoing discussion, and one that probably won’t have a definitive answer. Regardless of your position on the matter, one can not ignore that brand, personal or not, does exist. What we do with it and how we define it is up to us.

We reached out to our community and asked some of the local entrepreneurs and professionals their take.

Up first, Mr. Hubert Sawyers III. A local entrepreneur, Hubert shares how one’s personal brand stems from one’s authenticity. If those two elements are in sync, then it is very hard to deny one’s successful brand.

Hubert will be attending BrandCampU 2010, and can be found sharing his passion for music and business on Twitter. He is the founder of SorSaw Enterprises, co-founder of iDetroit, and blogs at Frying in Vein.

What is Brand Camp? If I were to define Brand Camp I wouldn’t call it a conference I would call it a gathering of the minds. It is one of the most unique personal branding experiences in the Midwest region and it is happening on Friday, October 8^th. (From more information: www.BrandCampU.com)

We have assembled a unique group of voices and practioneers in the business, branding and social media space many of which are new to Detroit. One of the key elements that separates Brand Camp from other interactive conferences is that we bring in CEOs and business owners that run million dollar corporations to bring you their business perspective from the C-Suite. If you run a $35M dollar business where you have to make payroll every week you provide a different perspective than someone who just directs the Marketing department in a small company.

Why Detroit?

Why was Detroit selected as the launching pad for Brand Camp besides it being my hometown? Detroit is the perfect location for Brand Camp. Detroit is a hard-working city and is known for it creativity from the days of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Motown.

Currently the unemployment rate in Michigan is 13.1%, which is higher than the national average (9.5%). The workplace has changed dramatically over the past five years but have you evolved with these changes? Are you prepared to work in a multi-generational workplace where location doesn’t matter and communication is rewired by the social web? These are some of the issues we will be tackling at Brand Camp. We will take a look at how a local economy (like Detroit) is impacted by government, media, technology, and entrepreneurial thinking.

New to Brand Camp this Year

• Case Study: PR Sarah Evans will be doing a personal branding case study of herself and how she has developed her personal brand.

• Panel: Re-Branding of Detroit: This panel would be made up of mostly baby boomers/gen Y with one millennial. The focus of this panel would center around the roles that entrepreneurship, technology, media and government play in growing the local economy of Detroit.

• Moved Brand Camp to a week day to target a larger business community.

• CEO Ari Weinzweig – CEO/Co-Founder of Zingerman’s a $35M local non-franchised business in Ann Arbor, MI.

Globalocal

What is ‘Globalocal’? It is a Global + local experience where you bring the two worlds together at Brand Camp you will get a taste of what this means.

Speakers

• Hajj Flemings – Founder/Principal of Brand Camp University
• PR Sarah Evans - President of Sevans Strategy/Founder of #journchat
• Ari Weinzweig – Founder of Zingerman’s Deli
• Lynne D. Johnson - SVP of the Advertising Research Federation
• Peter Shankman – Founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO)/The Geek Factory
• Wayne Sutton – Marketing Strategist at TriOut
• Cd Vann – Founder of unGeeked e’Lites Retreats
• Olivier Blanchard - Principal at Brand Builder Marketing

There is no place in the country you will get the experience we are going to provide for the price. Early bird registration of $50 ends August 26^th and the rate will then escalate to $100 for general registration.

I will see you in Detroit on Friday, October 8^th. Get your tickets while they last!!!!

The voting has started for Ignite Detroit. If you are interested in hearing my presentation you can vote by following this link: (Link: http://bit.ly/dgFYi9)
Voting: February 1st-8th

The Re-Education of the Disposable Worker
Presenter: Hajj E. Flemings

We live in the era of the Disposable Worker (DW). How does Detroit/America re-educate its human resources to prepare workers for the new economy. This presentation will focus on re-branding, re-thinking, re-inventing and re-educating DWs into thinking about themselves as the new factory.

Thanks in advance for your support!!!

Ignite Detroit
Date: February 25th
Location: Magic Stick
Time: 6:30pm - 9:00pm
www.IgniteDetroit.org