For me the video below is a well thought out and put together dig at what I have been seeing an explosion of this year and what is concerning me most about personal branding. Lack of depth and authenticity. It is what is causing so many online commentators to rant about it's shallowness, lack of substance, affront to the word branding, an attack on the profession of marketing etc etc.
I am certainly not claiming to be the perfect example of a personal brand, far from it, in fact is there really anyone that could lay claim to such? We are all evolving our brands and as technology advances our approaches change with it. But the point about the technology available to us is that it is a tool to help us communicate our personal brands in new ways, to more people – IT IS NOT PERSONAL BRANDING IN OF ITSELF.
In the last few months I have found myself commenting on more blog posts, more tweets on twitter and generally having more discussions about personal branding. Not because, like some others, I am just trying to associate my name with the term and get hailed as the next new media douche bag, but because I firmly believe this is a bona fide approach to career management – dare I say even life direction and focus – ultimately meaning greater personal satisfaction and positive impact with others.
It is what I did in a corporate career that spanned banking to biotech – two subjects in which I have very little formal qualifications, it is what I have done in helping numerous, similarly very capable, people achieve in industries and roles that otherwise they might not have been considered for and what I do not for employees inside some of North America's largest corporations.
Perhaps what I am doing right now is exactly what Kelly Stewart is 'having a go' at – I think not – but can YOU handle the truth about personal branding? Let me know what you think.