Kudos to the gang down at New Brand Tribalism (NBT from now on) for doing something startlingly different this week. In this age of instant e-access, 140-bit brevity and virtual buddies, how excited was I to receive an unsolicited package at work the other day. Remember them? Not quite brown paper held together by a piece of hairy string, but a none-the-less equally nostalgia inducing Jiffy bag. I wasn’t expecting anything from Amazon or eBay, so it was with a mounting sense of excitement that I ripped open the package to reveal “Live Long and Prosper: The 55 Minute Guide to Building Sustainable Brands”.

Written by Dan Gray, who as it happens I know through his regular contributions to Commscrum, (one of my favourite ‘serious’ blogs), the blurb promised a quick and deceptively simple guide to why CSR is dead and ‘design for sustainability’ is the next competitive advantage.

To be frank it could have been about bee keeping or beard trimming and I’d still have read it.

Not because it was a freebie – but because I have to return it as soon as I’ve read it. And because it had a library card pocket on the inside front cover complete with library card. It really has been years since I’ve seen one of them! And because the Jiffy Bag contained an SAJ (stamped, addressed Jiffy) so that I could return to sender at zero cost to me and that I would return to sender because it’s not easy to chuck a handful of unused postage stamps in the bin.

But the main reason I was going to read this book come what may was because it was accompanied by a note from my mate Eb at NBT reminding me of one of their core values: Knowledge is Energy. Knowledge Shared – is Energy Shared. What a great way to bring your core values to life. I want to read the book. I want to send it back. I want to share the experience with others.

NBT have invested a not inconsequential sum in sending this (and other books I’d wager) to a number of their friends, clients and countrymen to demonstrate not just a desire to build their own tribe of fans and doting admirers, but an expertise at doing just that.