Fruitful

Creating a personal brand

Robin Good gives 10 steps to creating a personal brand. Great stuff.

Think like a free agent.
Discover what sets you apart and market it shamelessly.
Get visible.
Stop networking, and build a network.
Add value - and then some.
Accelerate your brand power by getting in sync with a major trend in your field and moving to the head of it.
Marry an important, ethical cause as a complement to what you like to do
Share before looking for profit.
Help others become as successful as you.
Question yourself and your approach systematically - get forever curious.

Found via A Penny For and Scoble LinkBlog

Shining through

I just received some of the best advice I've had in a long time from fellow blogger David St. Lawrence. His suggestion to reveal more of my personality on my blog (since that's what blogs are for!) addressed something I'd been thinking about for some time, both for my offline and online world. I often point prospective clients, as well as members of presentation audiences, to my blog as an example of the many-to-many online trend, plus to show how bloggers are often negating the sanitized marketing messages of corporations. So, it hasn't been easy for me to walk that fine line between being professional while 'unsanitizing' my own message and letting my own authenticity shine through. But this is nothing new... in the real world, I find I have the often have the same challenge. As an only-child military brat, I grew up into a very independent and somewhat difficult-to-know adult. As I mentioned to David, I think I'm going to learn more through blogging than I'd ever expected!

So if a corporate brand is an idea in the minds of customers, then a personal brand is the idea of me in the minds of everyone I come in contact with. So I've been asking myself, what is my own personal brand? And I realize now that I can't stop at simply defining my brand; for if I keep half my brand attributes hidden, then the idea formed in the minds of others won't reflect my true nature. I think this goes back to honesty, transparency and authenticity in the corporate branding world, of which so many companies are afraid. And many (probably most) individuals are as well.

I like the recent post on BrandAutopsy on Executives are Blogging. My theory is that executives are concerned about the same thing as I am: they're so tightly linked with their companies, they're apprehensive about letting personality and personal viewpoints shine through without somehow tainting the corporate brand. And yet some of the best brands are those where personality does shine through. Far from tainting the brand, quirky and offbeat and honest personalities make the brand more human, more approachable (ike Virgin and Southwest Airlines).

And as I read back through this post, I realize that I've been writing for too many years with my business hat on... I think I've forgotten how to be quirky! Bear with me, this will be an evolution...

women in the workplace

The Volvo article inspired me to write about this article that Chris Lawer forwarded to me on women in the workplace:

Research by Catalyst, an advisory organisation for working women, found that 60 per cent of middle-level American career women bail out of their jobs... 'Women can make it to the top if they want to - the barriers are down,' says Sahar Hashemi, co-founder of the Coffee Republic chain. 'A lot of women are walking away from corporations and institutions because they want to live and work differently, not because anyone is forcing them out.

Today's fast-track women are a time bomb. Disenchanted by the structures and limitations of most organisations, full of self-confidence and with a wider menu of choices than men, a majority of them will just walk away from their big jobs if the big jobs don't change. Their mass rejection of organisations is a form of direct action that's forcing the whole landscape of work to change. Tired of waiting for change, the new generation is forcing the pace, and creating a new power paradigm that affects the entire workforce. Flexible working, for example, is a female-driven agenda that was unheard of 10 years ago. Now 26 per cent of women and 18 per cent of men work flexibly - and that's just the official figures.

Being a female entrepreneur myself, I appreciated the article on both a personal and professional level. Corporate brands -- like Volvo -- are realizing that to attract female customers, they have to think and act in a way that's appealing to women. And that starts with empowering their own female employees to have more of an impact within their respective corporations. To be buyer-centric, you must first be employee-centric. The term "stakeholder-centric" is becoming more and more appealing to me, because there's an inexorable link between internal and external constituencies.

From a personal brand perspective, women are beginning to be more authentic and follow their own internal compass rather than to conform and react to those around them. Their actions are directed by their unique personal brand. And by living a more authentic life, these women are inspiring those around them to do the same. I'm excited to see the societal changes to which women will birth in the coming years.