Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Do You Have Personal-IT-e?

Kevin Gibbons on Search Engine Land has a good overview of “Building Your Personal Brand” (http://searchengineland.com/seo-tips-for-building-your-personal-brand-21380)

In any arena where business decisions are influenced by the concept of expertise, then the demonstrated ability of the individual involved has distinct value. On an agency basis, this has traditionally been demonstrated by examples of work created as well as a listing of clients—the implication being that impressive clients would only work with high-quality partners. The other implication is that the ability demonstrated by a case study or a portfolio can be considered to translate across the agency. The individuals involved in a successful campaign are rarely spotlighted as distinct people; after all, in the fluid world of marketing, individuals may move on and their value to the organization drops to nil—and becomes a liability, since they are likely now a competitor.

For the people who created that campaign, however, the ability to demonstrate distinct and attributable skills is extremely important to their future livelihood. One has to have a portfolio or list of work examples to be considered for future employment. This is the most tangible way we have to show our capabilities—this is what I have done, so you may extrapolate what I can do.

But the modern interactive age allows much more demonstration than a resume or a portfolio. The pervasive web of social media allows a plethora of inexpensive channels through which we all can interact with the world and provide a potential audience with our clever thoughts and valuable insight into our profession. The concept of a personal brand becomes much more vibrant and important because one can finally (and easily) show our stuff to the world, without making a million cold calls.

So my insight for today is to all of us who want to make a living through our creative thinking and effective problem solving: show us what you can do.




The article includes this handy graphic, originally created by Gary Hays and Laurel Papworth, that really illustrates the web of interaction involved in developing your personal brand in the interactive space (http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyhayes/2973684461/).
I think we all need to start a blog, post things to Flickr or SlideShare or YouTube, and put our random (but valuable) thoughts out via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It doesn’t really matter whether or not anybody is listening every day; it only matters when that potential client or possible employer goes looking for you. Then they will see what you have done, and hopefully, they will find it meet and good. Otherwise they won’t know whether or not to even give you a call.