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The Good, The Bad & The Ugly of Brand Trump

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Since the advent of social media, I doubt there have been many events that have garnished as many comments, engagement, and mainstream media column inches as the US Presidential election, and in particular about Donald J. Trump.

I have often cited Trump, the businessman, as an example of a strong personal brand. He often followed the three C’s of branding – Clarity of message, Consistent delivery of that message and Constantly working at getting that message heard and noticed in his business dealings.

Without getting into an intense political debate, it could be argued that he delivered on the latter in his political run, but missed the mark on the clarity and consistency.

There is going to be a lot more said and written about this election, his presidency, as well as the hours spent analyzing why and how he became the 45th President of the United States.

So what were the plus and minus aspects of his campaign from a branding perspective?

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Will Today be Trump or Clinton’s Best Day at Work?

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By the end of the day, one of the candidates may well be looking back to today as one of their best days at work, at least so far. Of course, the work for the successful President of the United States is only just beginning, some future days maybe best days and some may be the worst, it’s not an easy job for sure. The best and worst seems to be how many of you look at your own jobs and careers.

Presenteeism, time spent at the workplace while not productively engaged in work, is the new absenteeism

The conclusion of a 2015 Canadian study, The True Picture of Workplace Absenteeism, with 1,300 people including just over 1,000 employees, found that 80 percent of respondents self-reported experience with presenteeism. 81 percent indicated that they had gone into work while they could not perform as well as they would have liked.

The reasons for doing so included physical sickness (47 percent), stress or anxiety (40 percent) and workplace issues and/or problems with co-workers or managers (22 percent). Depression was specified as the cause by 15 percent of respondents.

A quick Google search of #BestWorkDay uncovers plenty of top 10 lists on ways to ensure you have your best days at work. The common advice to these problems seems to fall into two camps.

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Lessons From Discover Your Personal Brand Conference – The All Star Panel

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This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak again at the Discover Your Personal Brand Conference.  DYPB 2016 was different from 2014 in a number of ways.

The focus was more toward small business and the caliber of speaker, panels and attendees was awesome. There were many inspiring young Canadians in attendance that really gave me a lift about the future of our country. All held within the back drop of Telus’ state of the art office in downtown Toronto, an environmental LEED building, bursting with technology and balanced with space and light.

The opportunity to attend conferences is always a big investment, even if its local so it was great to get such a rich experience. 

After introductions from the motivating conference organizer and founder Bobby Umar and keynotes from the always excellent Mark Bowden and inspiring Real Food for Real Kids founder Lulu Cohen-Farnell the highlight of the first evening for me was the Personal Brand Leadership All Star Panel. They were;

Cameron Gordon, Head of Communications, Twitter – Moderator
Erin Bury, Managing Director at 88 Creative
Jennifer Ettinger, Founder & President at Fit Your Style
Jagmeet Singh, MPP, ONDP Deputy Leader
Bobby Umar, Founder, Raeallan & DYPB

Full bios and more details on the schedule http://www.dypb.ca/schedule/ and other speakers can be found here http://www.dypb.ca/speakers/ 

Here is a Summary of the questions and panel answers;

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How Greening Your Business Can Boost Your Career & Your Values

The #COP21 Climate Change International Conference going on in Paris this week is big news. Hopefully for more than just creating headlines and soundbites. But how can you personally relate to environmental issues to what you on a day to day basis or how this impacts your job? A poll by the job board Monster.ca, found that 81% of Canadians considered that their employer was “polluting the environment,” “ignoring the need to be environmentally friendly,”… Read More »How Greening Your Business Can Boost Your Career & Your Values

Would Your Personal Brand Vision Get You Elected?

Unless you have been on another planet or deep in the rain forests of the Amazon, chances are you have seen, read or heard something about Rob Ford over the last few months.  This week saw an end to his reign as Toronto Mayor. But his strong brand still saw him elected back to his old council seat in the west of the city. It has been widely offered that… Read More »Would Your Personal Brand Vision Get You Elected?

Canadians – Have your vote now – What do you think are the personal brands of the leaders?

  The first week of the recently announced election here in Canada has been an interesting start to the campaign and already people are starting to compare the leaders personalities and styles as potentailly being the determining factor as to who wins and loses. Each party is playing to the personal brand of the leader to varying degrees, either seeing it as a strength or potentially a liability and based… Read More »Canadians – Have your vote now – What do you think are the personal brands of the leaders?

When having a common name is good for your personal brand

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         Today Chris Lee a Republican Congressman resigned due to posting a picture of himself on Craigslist in response to an ad for 'women to men' contact. It was not so much the inappropriate headshot that caused his downfall but that he claimed to be divorced when infact he is still married and then an aid claiming his personal e-mail account had been hacked. There are already 276,000 web pages… Read More »When having a common name is good for your personal brand

Possession is nine-tenths of the law

In the Toronto Star this past weekend was an entertaining and in some cases insightful look at the next council members. Each had been asked to attend a photo shoot and bring with them one or two objects that would show the electorate who they were. The new mayor and several councilors refused to attend or even respond, placing a trivial or perhaps fearful emphasis on the exercise. But this… Read More »Possession is nine-tenths of the law

(S)He Blinded You with Poli-Science

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Watching the political drama unfold over the last week in the UK has made me a little homesick. But it also had a number of lessons for personal branding, do these apply to you? Say one thing and then later do another. David Cameron was apparently asked during the campaigning what his favourite joke was. He said "Nick Clegg" – now he has formed a coalition government with the same… Read More »(S)He Blinded You with Poli-Science