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Deliver Your Brand

I recently read an article by Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress), which many people like Seth Godin have commented on, that was pretty much dead on when it comes to delivering a product. Here is an excerpt:

Usage is like oxygen for ideas – You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you‘ve created until it’s out there. That means every moment you’re working on something without it being in the public it‘s actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world.

I think this applies to personal branding.

Although there are a bunch of us that understand the importance of personal branding, there are droves of our peers out there that are not completely sold on the concept. I believe MOST of that has to do with confidence. What if I am not good enough? What if I am not consistent and compelling? People take themselves right out of the game.

There is a unique paradox in personal branding about being consistent and frequent. I think this is is VERY true, but I do think its more important to be ON TIME, than consistent and frequent. Matt in his article talked about Apple and WordPress dealing with the challenges of delivering product. Apple products many times when released, albeit with ingenuity and gargantuan hype, at times fall short of what pundits say “the customer actually wants.” Much of that is due to the the fact that their philosophy is to deliver great product and develop it to maturity while it is in the market. I believe Apple’s reasoning for this thought process is that they feel many people don’t completely know what they want in a product until they start using it. I tend to agree.

This is the same way with personal branding. Many of us didn’t know what our personal brand was, until we started developing one.

Deliver your brand.

If you know someone who is discouraged by the enormous task of maintaining a personal brand, tell them they have lost until they deliver their brand. You don’t know what you are made of until you get in the game (sports analogy).

I believe it is very important to give your brand oxygen, and if you don’t know what your brand is yet, dig deep inside your heart and create some prototypes. You know the core you, but allow your audience to guide you to where you need to be.

P.S. Deliver Magazine is a great source of information for marketers and small business owners.

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Top 20-iPad Apps for Personal Branding, Entrepreneurs + Biz Professionals

What is an iPad? Is it an oversized iPhone? Is it a MacBook Pro with fewer features? I listen to the critics and the pundits talk about the iPad and weigh in and give their opinion.

What is the iPad to Me

“The iPad is not a tool but a ball of Clay. Creative Thinkers will re-imagine uses for the iPad and disrupt industries.”

- Hajj E. Flemings -Personal Brand Strategist

The iPad is the latest is a series of disruptive products produced by Apple: iPod, iPhone, and now the iPad. The iPad is set to disrupt the media, publishing, entertainment and business industries.

I am writing this blog post as an owner and practitioners of the iPad. I have read quite a few posts from people suggesting the top apps and it is clear to me that they don’t own an iPad or have used it for any period of time. ( I will now get off my soap box : )

As a personal brand, entrepreneur, and consultant I have found that it helps me to manage my business in very creative and efficient ways. Listed below are the 22-apps that I have used and believe are critical business use.

Productivity

1. Time Master – Time Master is a great time management app that is great for consultants, entrepreneurs, attorneys, and contractors. This app allows you to track time and expenses and export billing to excel. You have the ability to add modules that will allow you to export to Quickbooks.

2. Sound Note – Sound Note is an app that allows you to take written notes and record audio notes and save them as M4A format. The app allows you to track what you were typing and drawing while recording the audio.

3. Text Plus – The Text Plus iPad app allows you to send text messages from your iPad. This app is great to use when you are in meetings and you need to respond to text message or send one and it isn’t appropriate to text from your phone.

4. Task Pro – Task PRO is a powerful, flexible and elegant task management application for the iPad. It fully supports sub-tasking, a powerful mechanism that gives you complete control over managing and organizing your tasks. It’s very simple and intuitive to use. You can easily create simple Todo list, or have multiple complex projects side by side.

5. WebEx – The Webex app allows you to access WebEx meetings on your iPad, wherever you are! This app gives you full meeting experience with simultaneous data and audio.

6. GotoMeeting – The GoToMeeting app is an easy way to attend online meetings – and now you can take it to go! View slide presentations, design mockups, spreadsheets, reports – whatever meeting presenters choose to share on-screen.

7. Desktop Connect – The Desktop Connect app allows fast, full-featured desktop viewing. View and control Windows, Mac OSX and Linux computers as if you were sitting in front of them, or observe others as if you were watching over their shoulder. This app allows you view webistes with Adobe Flash.

8. iThoughts HD (Mind Mapping) - iThoughtsHD is a mindmapping app that will import and export mindmaps to and from many of the most popular desktop mindmap applications such as Freemind, XMind, Novamind, MindManager, MindView, iMindmap and PDFs.

Storage

9. Dropbox – Dropbox is an app that allows you to sync, and, share files online. Great for storing files for your business and projects that you are working on. Great for businesses that need to have multi-member teams access to files.

10. Box.net – Box.net is an app that allows you to sync, and, share files online. Great for storing files for your business and projects that you are working on. Great for businesses that need to have multi-member teams access to files.

11. Mobile Me – MobileMe is an app that allows you to automatically pushes new email, contacts, and calendar events to your iPhone, Mac, and PC. So your devices always stay in perfect sync. MobileMe is also great for storing files on a cloud.

12. Google Mobile Apps – Google Mobile app allows you to access Google search and Google apps like Docs, Calendar and Gmail. If you view docs in desktop version you have the ability to edit docs.

Finance

13. Square – Square is an app that allows you to accept credit card payments anywhere on your iPad without having a credit card merchant account. All you need is to plug in the free credit card reader into the headphone jack to authorize payments out of the office.

Documents/Presentations

14. Office 2 HD – Office2 HD supports creation and editing of Word and Excel files. It does support Word and Excel import and export though, unlike the iWork suite. Office HD 2 supports Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox, iDisk, and SugarSync online storage services.

15. Docs2Go – Documents to Go is a cloud file support app that allows you to view, import, and export: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Documents To Go supports Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox, iDisk, and SugarSync online storage services.

16. Evernote – Evernote is a great app to capture notes, text, photos using your computer, phone, and the web. Keeping notes from meetings, research on various topics.

17. Keynote – Keynote is one of the apps form the iWork suite. This presentation application on the iPad allows you to send your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint or PDF format to anyone via Mail or iWork.com public beta, or copy it to your MobileMe iDisk, your Mac or PC, or to the web using WebDAV.

18. Sign my Pad - Sign My Pad is an iPad PDF signature app that allows you to download PDF files modify them with: text, a radio button or checkbox, the date and your signature. This app allows you to save time in scanning, faxing, and gives you the ability to sign important documents on the go.

Social Networking

19. Tweetdeck – The Tweetdeck iPad app allows you to access, organize, and manage your Twitter accounts and is great for tweeting on the go.

20. Twitter – The Twitter iPad app allows you to access, organize, and manage your Twitter accounts and is great for tweeting on the go.

I hope you found this blog post helpful. Enjoy your iPad.

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The SparkNotes of Personal Branding

Building your brand is a continuous process that will last you your entire lifetime and there are countless ways that you can build and communicate your personal brand both online and in-person.

However, to get you started, I have put together what I’d like to consider a SparkNotes guide for establishing your brand and credibility in today’s career marketplace in 3 easy steps:

1. Get active and get visible online and offline:

If no one meets you or sees you, it won’t matter how strong your personal brand is. Therefore, it is critical that you get both your name and yourself in front of your target audience. Here are some ways to increase your visibility:

o Create a LinkedIn profile and follow the suggested steps to complete your profile 100%, making sure you include your personal brand and pitch in your subtitle and summary sections

o Create a Google account and profile for improved search engine optimization

o Include your personal brand on your resume, cover letter, business cards, email signature, voicemail message and across your other social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook

o Consider creating a personal website or blog site where you can store all of your professional information, including experience, education, skills, honors, entrepreneurial efforts and more

o Join associations or networking groups within your industry, both online and offline, and try attending their events to meet new contacts and build your target network. Be sure to share your personal brand with those new contacts you meet

o Conduct informational interviews with contacts in your target industry or companies (whether or not you’re seeking a job) and share your personal brand with them in your introductions

2. Offer consistent value:

Make sure that everything you contribute is valuable to those with whom you share it and also relevant to and supportive of your personal brand. Consistency is key, for the more consistent all of your own marketing efforts are both online and offline, the more powerful and memorable your personal brand impression will be on all current and prospective stakeholders in your career. Here are some ways you can start contributing value on a daily or weekly basis:

o Tweets

o Comments on other blog posts

o Blog articles or articles for print publications

o Discussions in LinkedIn Groups or in other forums

o Advice via LinkedIn Answers and other forums

o Book or product reviews

3. Develop thought leadership:

As you grow the quantity, quality and uniqueness of your contributions, you may be increasingly considered as an industry thought leader. Here are some ways to support and even expedite your rise to thought leadership:

o Start your own blog with a unique POV on your industry/area of interest

o Found a company with relevant and valuable products/services/resources for the industry

o Publish and offer print and/or electronic publications

o Get quoted in the media by joining HARO (HelpaReporter.com) and contributing advice, experiences and insights to writers and journalists seeking expert sources

o Find ways to bring fellow industry thought leaders together on a project or at an event

o Find ways to contribute to the projects or events of fellow industry experts

o Get recommended on LinkedIn and any other networks where you or your offerings are available and/or collect and display testimonials from customers, clients and partners

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing “generator,” a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer and Launchpad.

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Negative Campaign Ads and Their Impact on Personal Branding

What can we learn from negative campaign ads? We can clearly see the mentality of our society. A society that lacks accountability, that blames others for things gone wrong versus one of introspection that is hardwired with a moral compass. As the campaign season has come and gone (November 2nd) this fall I wanted to reflect on the impact of negative campaign ads and personal branding.

The Influence

The influence of negative campaign ads reaches beyond politics and the campaigns that a particular candidate is running. Let’s break it down. A candidate that develops a negative campaign ad is basically telling you he/she is incapable of winning the political race with a safe margin without running the ads and there is data to support that. Any candidate that can win a political race without negative ads will run clean campaign ads, period.

Good to Great (Level 5 Leaders) - They take responsibility when something goes wrong and deflects the praise to their employees when things go right.

The Pink Elephant in the Room

It is easy to find fault with someone else and to point out their inefficiencies. It is much harder to focus internally on what value you bring to the table, communicate your true expertise, and give clear examples of how you have solved problems that benefit people other than yourself.

I look at personal branding through a different len/worldview. Personal branding is more than who you are between 9am-5pm. At it’s core personal branding it is driven by your value system. There hs been no other point of time in history when a person has had more control over their career than today with the invention of the internet and the real-time web.

As a personal brand it is time to lose the negative ad campaign mentality. Your career or life in reality are a reflection of your choices and decisions. Your career path is not the responsibility of your supervisor to mentor you, nor is their annual review of your job performance the reason for your annual salary. It isn’t HR responsibilities to put you on the career fast track. If you don’t like your reality you can change it by doing something about it by running your own clean campaign ads. Let potential employers know why they should vote for (hire you), market your value and track record of being a proven leader. Quite living an undervalued life!

Note: The video that I have included has absolutely nothing to do with negative campaign ads I prodcued it two years ago and I thought you would enjoy it.

I am your personal brand strategist Hajj Flemings and I approve this message.

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