Working out loud and one’s personal brand are inextricably linked. As I often state, your personal brand helps to answer this question:
It does so because you have shared your work / attributes / beliefs. Your audience has consequentially (re)oriented itself around you, and can answer that question by making suggestions, asking clarifying questions, asking for more or, indeed, saying ‘No thanks!”
Conversely, if you have not shared your work, your attitudes, interests and focii, well, what is anyone to make of you? They peer at your job title, mostly, and make their own suppositions.
The last couple of days I have been preparing and presenting on personal branding for a team of 35 at work. The personal point I made in the introduction session was that if they look at me as “Director, Corporate Communications” they will only get one part of me and my service offering.
Even if I ask “How can I help?” they will be answering a different question, “How can I help (in the strict definition of my formal role, as you see it)?”
Instead, if I share my brand, as a sponsor of creative tension – with innovation, verve and a willingness to fail – and as someone who works at velocity – at speed, with direction – well, I can probably help every group in a new, improved way.
So, #PKyvr33 is also part of my brand, because you might make a decent guess as to how I can help. I hope the Pecha Kucha Vancouver audience feel the same!
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This Much We Know 