Our guiding mission is to deliver superior quality products and services for our customers and communities through leadership, innovation and partnerships.

Wendy's is a fast food restaurant chain that sells hamburgers, malts, fries, salads, etc. yet their mission statement says nothing about that. Their mission statement could just as easily apply to a bank or television set manufacturer. Ridiculous.

It is easy to criticize but hard to critique. So it was refreshing to see Kawasaki present his idea for what the mantra should be for Wendy's: healthy, fast food. Other examples were "peace of mind" for FedEx, "authentic athletic performance" for Nike, and "empowers entrepreneurs" for Guy Kawasaki. Hmmm. A personal mantra. Interesting. But rather than looking at the issue of a personal mantra, let's look at the corporate mantra.

Like Kawasaki, I've never been a big fan of mission statements. As a result, we've never formally created one for CollegeRecruiter.com. It could be something like this:

The mission of CollegeRecruiter.com is to be the leading career information and lead generation site in the college student and recent graduate market niche.

But will our employees, contractors, strategic partners, clients, users, and other stakeholders understand that let alone remember it let alone care enough about it to shape their actions? Not a chance. So let's look at the mantra that we created:

college career connector

It identifies our college career niche. It is neutral in that it is meaningful to the employers and schools that form the bulk of our client base. And it addresses our role in the process: we help connect college students and recent graduates with employers and schools. Soon we'll add the mantra to our logo to help all of our internal and external stakeholders better understand who we are and what we do...our mission.