Growing up in Britain, we were pretty good at ensuring no-one thought they were too good. Anyone who grew too tall for the crowd was cut down in size. It creates a social ambiguity as to who is good at … Continue reading One Day I Will Run For Office. Or, Allowed To Be Twice As…#Shard
I led a personal branding workshop on Friday evening, and we talked about how important it is in life to let people know how you can best help them. Branding is a synthesis process, distilling all your greatness down to … Continue reading Blogging Here Is An Incubation Process
One revelation of the process of researching and activating personal branding, for me, has been a turnaround in perspective about HELP.
I have always been loath to ask for help. Always thought I could do it myself (fool!). Tied up with this is an idea that the main reason to talk about yourself is to network hard and get into people’s rolodexes / contacts so that you can pick them off one by one and ask for the help. Some childhood stuff going on there probably, but here’s the Aha!
Continue reading “Personal Brand: Get One To Help And To Get Help”
Recently I wrote a few posts about how to start out on the personal branding journey, after a late night conversation with a (successful) friend who wanted others to ‘get him’ more. It goes roughly like this: Reflect on who you are (Subtley) Insert outcomes of above into your daily conversations Get lucky No rocket science, just a little applied thinking. Well, turns out it works. The same friend let me know that he had been letting others know how he shows up and where he adds most value and what he is really good at. He had a few phrases he … Continue reading “This Is Who I Am” Lets Others Say “This Is Who You Are.”
When you enter the dark and misunderstood world of change agency, a curtain is parted and you see before you thousands of shiny objects and golden baubles – all of them possibilities. Possibilities to add value, to shake things up, in deepen and improve community, to unlock talent from outmoded ways of organizing. What to touch? What to play with? It can be intoxicating, and all the more difficult to decide for it. A Change Agents Worldwide colleague, Kevin Jones, wrote recently about how he defines his service, when there is SO MUCH TO DO! He practiced a few times at a … Continue reading Just What Am I Here To Do…?
SO, we are done and done. The pecha has been kuched, so to speak. It took a couple of weeks of thinking, iterating, practicing, culling, worrying, and letting go to get it done. It ended like this, in front of around 1000 people The whole process from start to finish was highly enjoyable. There is nothing quite like seeing the work come together before your very eyes, alongside the learning. Double whammy. This is the storify of the process of working out loud on a pecha kucha about working out loud. It got a bit meta, but I just about … Continue reading #PKyvr33 Close Out: It Was All Worth It, From Beginning To End
Working out loud and one’s personal brand are inextricably linked. As I often state, your personal brand helps to answer this question: How can I help? 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 … Continue reading #PKyvr33 Day 10: Working Out Loud Impacts Your Personal Brand
I was asked to write a few words on personal branding for an IABC mentoring program in which I participate. This is what I shared… I could rattle on about personal branding all night long (don’t let me corner you … Continue reading Personal Branding: A Call To Arms
I don’t talk a lot about work, or my TMWK focus, when I am home. Family life is busy enough – there is nary a moment for open discussion. This weekend, though, Lori and I went out for dinner and to the cinema, so we had a chance to talk about #PKyvr33, and about the blog. Lori claims to read all the posts, and she gave me some lovely, simple feedback that is prescient to the #PKyvr33 process of explaining what the hell I did under the stairs at work for a week. I made a few notes on my … Continue reading #PKyvr33 Day 4: Permission To Be Human #WOLyo #WOLweek
The TMWK brand arose from iterative work. It came from real action, real outcomes – the TMWK BrandBoard process. It came from working out loud trying to effect change in the workplace, to support people build their reputation and explain their individual advantage. Retrospectively, I considered the underlying themes of delivering a personal branding program. I identified five ideas that simply described the output / outcome. They happened to create a neat apronym – F.R.E.S.H. Fun.Revealing.Entertaining.Shareable+Social.Heartfelt. Now think about how you relate to another person. You meet someone at a party, or a conference, and an outcome is that you connect … Continue reading The Person To Person Economy: Be F.R.E.S.H.
You may recall that personal branding begins with reflection. It takes on a life of its own through stories that are amplified. You create a social object. The outcome is you get lucky… Serendipitously, today I wrote up some notes from Reid Hoffman’s The Start Up Of You. In the Invest In Yourself section, his action item is Update your profile on LinkedIn [where he is Chairman] so that your summary statement articulates your competitive advantages. You should be able to fill in this sentence: “Because of my [skill/experience/strength], I can do [type of professional work] better than [specific types of … Continue reading Personal Branding: Get Lucky
Your personal brand begins with reflection. You sense ideas of your brilliance. Now, you need to make them come alive. If you are an “analytical” accountant, well, so is every other accountant. So exactly what was your process or insight that allowed you to do that great work? Dig around for words, dig around for stories, especially. Share those stories. Others may not remember your direct strengths, but they will relay a good story about you. These stories are data points. They weave together to build your narrative, and as John Hagel so eloquently explains, your personal narrative is never finished, … Continue reading Personal Branding: Solidify Through Stories
This Much We Know 