"Being different is ultimately all about values -- your values, your brand's values, and your company's values. Your values are what set you apart." -Scott Bedbury (Below, With Laurie Coots)

The Place: Sundance, Utah

The Event: The Fast Company Advance, a celebration of Fast Company's third anniversary

The Gathering: A round table of 45 of the best brains in the new world of work -- a two-day conversation among change agents from some of the world's biggest and best-known companies; leaders from young, fast-growing companies; business thinkers and educators from the United States and South America; activists from the world of politics and public policy; economists and anthropologists, strategists and physicians

The Rules: No canned speeches. No overhead slides. And check your ego at the door.

The Topics: Four themes that cut across the world of work: What does it mean to be a brand today? How do you create a successful startup -- or restart an old company? What do companies owe to their countries? And what are some of the abiding human issues that underlie the new world of work?

The Record: We taped the entire two-day conversation. Here we present an edited selection of comments made by 14 of the participants -- provocative insights and useful practices drawn from the table talk at Sundance.

It's a New Brand World!

Scott Bedbury: It's fashionable to talk about differentiating your brand. Consequently, a lot of people are trying to be different just for the sake of being different. But that's dangerous -- and often very shallow. To me, the question is not how can you be different, but how can you be different in a way that resonates deeply with people? How can you, your people, your products -- and therefore, your brand -- create a human connection? Or, to put it differently, now that everyone's bragging about their brand, how can a product develop humility?

I'm a firm believer that the bedrock of any great brand is a great product. But that's not enough. At Nike, we chastised anybody who tried to promote the brand solely on the basis of our technology -- even though we knew that our technology was the best out there. Nike Air was great. It was protected by a thousand patents -- but, when it came to connecting with our customers, it was insane to push the high-tech aspect.

When Nike broke the "Just Do It" campaign, the company was standing up for the human spirit. When Apple broke its "Think Different" campaign, it was making a human connection. And this is critical, because today, in almost every industry, we're seeing product parity -- or at least the perception of product parity -- on the part of customers.

God help any company that thinks its product is better, whiter, brighter, or faster than anybody else's and then stops there -- because plenty of customers just see parity where you might see better performance.

That means that the real branding challenge is to peel back the layers of the customer -- to get to his heart, his soul, to a place where he does not even think consciously. And to get there, you have to make decisions that you can't begin to justify financially -- or even quantify -- beforehand. You have to make these decisions from the gut, not based on focus groups or data. These are the wild-card decisions -- random thoughts or out-of-left-field observations. And they come from people who are having fun in their work, people whose sense of humor and personal excitement comes through in the brand.

Another question is, How can you differentiate your brand? To me, the answer is that being different is ultimately about values -- your values, your brand's values, and your company's values. Your values are what set you apart. Starbucks is built on Howard Schultz's values. Howard promised himself that he would create a company that would never leave its employees behind. And when he took over Starbucks in 1987, he set out to provide stock ownership and health and medical benefits for all of his half-time employees. Starbucks was also one of the first companies to recognize same-sex marriages.

Today, when you look at the quick-serve restaurant industry, Starbucks is different from almost all the others -- and it's not just because a place like Burger King fills bellies, whereas a good coffee house fills the soul. It's also because companies like Taco Bell have 250% to 300% turnover among their hourly employees and 100% to 150% turnover among their managers. The turnover rates at Starbucks are a fraction of that.