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• « Monday « April 27, 2009

  1. datetime

     1. {04272009}
     2. {10:37:16 AM}

     content

     1. Personal Branding: It's a Myth

         
     2. The real-time Web is rife with personal branding gurus and talk of taking ownership of your personal brand. I think it's a crock of shii. People who talk about personal brands in all seriousness don't really understand what branding is. Instead of personal branding, you stand a better chance of success by just being yourself, warts and all.

        Let's first define this nebulous term "branding." It's simple, actually. If you have a product or a service, branding is the process of accomplishing two basic and essential tasks: telling potential customers and patrons how you're different than your competition, and why you're better. That's it. It's really that simple...and that hard.

        Now, let's take that definition and apply it to a singular entity - a person - and for laughs, let's call the process 'personal branding.' This one person is not in pursuit of a massively well-known and public position, like, say, President of the United States, competing against two or three other well-known people, but is instead looking for a more modest opportunity, like their next job, with more pay and bigger responsibilities.

        Let's take Otis, my man, an experienced and competent marketing associate at an up-and-coming firm, in Any Town. If he were to truly brand himself, he first would have to position his skills, talents, and experience against all of the other marketing associates... in the world, because he's in competition with them all, if this personal branding hype is to be believed. How many competitors that matter are there? Let's say, for the sake of argument, given the fact that the world is flat now, and that the Internet shrinks time zones, and makes a candidate in London just as viable as one in Los Angeles, that there are 10,000 other equally qualified people whom Otis competes with, 2,000 (or 20%) of whom are also working on their own "personal branding" programs. Realistically, how is poor old Otis going to position himself against a market so large, and which really can't be defined in any objective way? How can one differentiate against 10,000? The truth is, most everyone will be pretty much the same, unless they're truly exceptional, and those folks attract opportunities rather than seek them.

        Moreover, since Otis' task isn't just to position and differentiate himself from his competitors, he must also prove that he is better than all of his 10,000+ competitors. How does he do that? Just by saying he's better? Really? Well, isn't that what everyone says?

        At any rate, he's not branding anything. Otis' competitive set is too large for him to break free, and he can't prove in any definitive way that he's better than ALL his competition by "branding" himself. What he's really doing in this branding process is trying to find a clever, buzzword-compliant way to get his resume to the top of the slush pile.

        But let's not call that process "personal branding."

        "Personal branding" is not only a myth, for a regular person, who is not famous, it's near impossible to demonstrate in almost any setting. Oprah can have a personal brand. You probably can't, not today, at least. But there is hope: one thing the Internet does provide is a global platform for anyone to showcase what they can do. In the "old days," they used to call this "doing the legwork" to find a better career opportunity. I wish we'd go back to calling it that, or something more similar and accurate. There are certainly more opportunties today to display one's talents, in efficiently public ways, but that's not personal branding. That's called polishing your resume.

        If you're honest with what you 're doing you'll be more successful.

     metadata

     1. 
     2. 10:37:16 AM

     3. The real-time Web is rife with personal branding gurus and talk of taking ownership of your personal brand. I think it's a crock of shii. People who talk about personal brands in all seriousness don't really understand wha..."

     4. 

     categories

     1. keywords:
     2. employment
     3. business
     4. tags:
     5. personal+branding
     6. web2.0

     type

   

• « Friday « April 24, 2009

  1. datetime

     1. {04242009}
     2. {08:05:48 PM}

     content

     1. Kung Fu Fighting

         

        (blip.fm)

         
     2. One of my favorite all-time songs.

     metadata

     1. 
     2. 08:05:48 PM