Maddie Grant has passed along a thoughtful piece written from a panel in which she participated on the topic of personal versus corporate (or "company") branding. The link is here .
Posts from this end on the topic are Time to be Greedy: Your Brand , (More) Time to be Greedy: Why You Need A Brand Called “You” , and (Still) Time to Be Greedy – Why Your Firm Needs a Brand Called “You ”.
Why is this stuff important?
The reality of today is that everyone – company, organization, governmental agency, person, product, etc. has a brand – whether you realize or not – and if it’s you as a person as a brand, how you interact (e.g. behavior) with others defines that brand. In the 24/7 Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn world we inhabit, the sum of those interactions shape and mold how that brand gets perceived, and how people respond to you.
While some people – I think of my former colleague Jan Maderious Homan from Orinda as an example – would like to remain anonymous and keep their identify private – it’s virtually impossible. Real estate filings, registration with Classmates.com, or a page on Facebook and your identify is out and available to be "known."
In the professional world, an understanding and a crispness of your own brand helps you navigate the world of jobs and work. A distilled sense of who you are – which is really all a brand is – becomes your guide for how you interact and respond to the world around you.
Part of my work coaching individuals – albeit not branding work – is helping people get that deep sense of who they are, or who they want to be, and how that informs their work life. While it sounds complicated, it actually ends of simplifying things.
Ready Maddie’s post when you have the chance – just like the other work I’ve seen from her, it’s thoughtful a nd concise in a way that most of us wish we could be.