Personal Branding Interview: Kevin Carroll (@kckatalyst) – Integrating Work + Play in Biz

Kevin Carroll is the author of ‘The Red Rubber Ball at Work’ and ‘Rules of the Red Rubber Ball’ powerful books on integrating play and work.

Does your corporation have a creative culture?  Do you have a workforce that creatively produce higher quality work, despite lower headcount, and less financial incentives? Listen to the Tech MBA Minute (produced by Tech MBA Online) interview with Kevin has he takes us on a journey of integrating work and play in business.

For More Information on Kevin Carroll

Twitter: @kckatalyst

Blog: www.KevinCarrollkatalyst.com

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5-Ways to Attend Brand Camp ’10 for Free!

Brand Camp '10

Brand Camp ’10 theme centers round entrepreneurial thinking so I thought a blog post that fosters that mindset to attend Brand Camp would be a great topic.

How do you fund your vision?  Whether you run a start-up, work for someone or have entrepreneurial aspirations life revolves around problem solving.  History celebrates the great minds that use creative capital to get to their end results.

Brand Camp is a great event (with great speaker:  Olivier Blanchard, PR Sarah Evans, Wayne Sutton, Peter Shankman, Lynne D. Johnson, and CD Vann) so I thought it would be cool to provide strategies to help people attend Brand Camp ’10 for free.  I have listed a few options from micro financing to having a garage sale.

Conference Website Link: www.BrandCampU.com

1. Go Fund Me

Go Fund me (http://www.gofundme.com) is a way to raise money for your ideas and dreams via Micro-financing. People are willing to support events or causes that they believe in.  Start by putting together a list of educational, career and networking benefits.  A recent example of this is Heather MacDonald who raised $419 to attend the #Epic #Tweet-up in Detroit.  Surely you can raise $75.

2. Employer Sponsorship

Employee Driven

Most companies are looking for ways to grow their social presence be proactive pitch your employer.  Become the brand ambassador for your company and but together a business case of how a day at Brand Camp will benefit the company.

Employer Driven

Employers looking to integrate social media into their marketing mix should understand this is not just the job of one person.   You can equip your employees/staff with the tools  needed to become more knowledgeable using social networks for business.  Employers can sponsor three or more employees for a small investment of $75 a ticket.

3. Corporate Sponsorship

Put together a proposal for a company that you will represent at Brand Camp by blogging and tweeting for them.  Be creative maybe you can wear a company shirt and become a human billboard and create some social capital they can use Flickr, Twitter ,etc.

4. Garage Sale (Estate Sale)

For high society folks that don’t attend garage sales you can call it an ‘Estate Sale’.  What is the difference?  Typically it is zip code driven cities like Grosse Pointe take these events very seriously.  Find some cool things at your house/apartment/condo that needs to be cleaned out or that closet which is full of items you have been meaning to get rite of.  Before it gets to cool create a sign, tweet about it and post it to your Facebook status.  Let your friends know what your goals are and you will be on your way to Brand Camp.

5. Collecting Bottles (in Michigan $.10/per bottle)

Now the most labor intensive option of them all is collecting returnable bottles in the state of Michigan.  So lets break this down so $75 dollars means 750 bottles so if you develop a bottle collecting strategy for three-weeks which breaks down to 250 bottles.  If you work 3-days a week for 8-hours a day for a month (You will need two other friends to purchase tickets at the same time to get the $75 rate.)

Let us know the creative way you are funding your way to Brand Camp!

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Hubert Sawyers Talks About Authenticity and Personal Brand

Ask ten people what they think about branding and personal brand, and you are likely to get ten different opinions on the subject. It’s an ongoing discussion, and one that probably won’t have a definitive answer. Regardless of your position on the matter, one can not ignore that brand, personal or not, does exist. What we do with it and how we define it is up to us.

We reached out to our community and asked some of the local entrepreneurs and professionals their take.

Up first, Mr. Hubert Sawyers III. A local entrepreneur, Hubert shares how one’s personal brand stems from one’s authenticity. If those two elements are in sync, then it is very hard to deny one’s successful brand.

Hubert will be attending BrandCampU 2010, and can be found sharing his passion for music and business on Twitter. He is the founder of SorSaw Enterprises, co-founder of iDetroit, and blogs at Frying in Vein.

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Why You Should Attend Brand Camp ‘10?

Paul Manoian Photography

What is Brand Camp?  If I were to define Brand Camp I wouldn’t call it a conference I would call it a gathering of the minds.  It is one of the most unique personal branding experiences in the Midwest region and it is happening on Friday, October 8th. (From more information:  www.BrandCampU.com)

We have assembled a unique group of voices and practioneers in the business, branding and social media space many of which are new to Detroit.  One of the key elements that separates Brand Camp from other interactive conferences is that we bring in CEOs and business owners that run million dollar corporations to bring you their business perspective from the C-Suite.  If you run a $35M dollar business where you have to make payroll every week you provide a different perspective than someone who just directs the Marketing department in a small company.

Why Detroit?

Why was Detroit selected as the launching pad for Brand Camp besides it being my hometown?  Detroit is the perfect location for Brand Camp.  Detroit is a hard-working city and is known for it creativity from the days of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Motown.

Currently the unemployment rate in Michigan is 13.1%, which is higher than the national average (9.5%).  The workplace has changed dramatically over the past five years but have you evolved with these changes?  Are you prepared to work in a multi-generational workplace where location doesn’t matter and communication is rewired by the social web?  These are some of the issues we will be tackling at Brand Camp.  We will take a look at how a local economy (like Detroit) is impacted by government, media, technology, and entrepreneurial thinking.

New to Brand Camp this Year

  • Case Study: PR Sarah Evans will be doing a personal branding case study of herself and how she has developed her personal brand.
  • Panel: Re-Branding of Detroit: This panel would be made up of mostly baby boomers/gen Y with one millennial. The focus of this panel would center around the roles that entrepreneurship, technology, media and government play in growing the local economy of Detroit.
  • Moved Brand Camp to a week day to target a larger business community.
  • CEO  Ari Weinzweig – CEO/Co-Founder of Zingerman’s a $35M local non-franchised business in Ann Arbor, MI.

Globalocal

What is ‘Globalocal’?  It is a Global + local experience where you bring the two worlds together at Brand Camp you will get a taste of what this means.

Speakers

  • Hajj Flemings – Founder/Principal of Brand Camp University
  • PR Sarah Evans -  President of Sevans Strategy/Founder of #journchat
  • Ari Weinzweig – Founder of Zingerman’s Deli
  • Lynne D. Johnson -  SVP of the Advertising Research Federation
  • Peter Shankman – Founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO)/The Geek Factory
  • Wayne Sutton – Marketing Strategist at TriOut
  • Cd Vann – Founder of unGeeked e’Lites Retreats
  • Olivier Blanchard – Principal at Brand Builder Marketing

There is no place in the country you will get the experience we are going to provide for the price.  Early bird registration of $50 ends August 26th and the rate will then escalate to $100 for general registration.

I will see you in Detroit on Friday, October 8th.  Get your tickets while they last!!!!

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Announcement: Brand Camp University adds Adjunct Lecturers: @KellyLux & @Riddick3point0

Today Brand Camp University is excited to announce the addition of two new Adjunct Lecturers (Bloggers): Kelly Lux and Lawrence Riddick. They bring a great deal of knowledge and incite from their career experience and we are very happy that they have decided to share content on BrandCampU.com. They will be posting content that is career, social media, and personal branding related. For more information about Kelly and Lawrence her bio have been included below.

Kelly Lux – School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University as Social Media Manager

I recently joined the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University as Social Media Manager. My duties entail designing strategies for the social media efforts of the Syracuse iSchool and Syracuse University. I manage SM accounts on a variety of platforms and engage with a set of diverse populations, while building community and brand awareness.

We are forging partnerships with a variety of social media companies in order to build and expand Syracuse University’s presence in this space. It is our intention to make SU the leader in social media among our peers.

I lead a team of graduate and undergraduate students on a variety of social media projects designed to enhance the social media experience of prospective and current students, alumni, potential donors, employers, researchers, educators and the community.

At the iSchool I am a member of the iComm Team which is responsible for internal & external print, social and web communications content and design.

Most recently, I worked in Career Services at SU managing the Mentor @ SU program, making connections between students & alumni for networking, using social media, one on one meetings and workshops to deliver career advice, and planning and hosting networking events across the country.

For more information follow Kelly at: @KellyLux

Lawrence Riddick – Principal at Clarity Consulting & Design

Lawrence is a dynamic marketing professional with over 8 years of experience in helping brands and ideas emerge and evolve. He has working experience in marketing, design, project management, publishing, and writing.
Most recently while at Experience Marketing as an Experience Director, Lawrence helped his team execute and activate hundreds of sponsored events on behalf of General Motors. Prior to Experience Marketing he worked as a project manager in the branded content publishing division of Campbell-Ewald Advertising on publications such Corvette Quarterly and OnStar Magazine.
Lawrence started his career with an entrepreneurial effort as owner of an agency, The Riddick Group, that serviced small to mid-size businesses with marketing communication solutions. In addition to creating marketing plans and ad campaigns for clients, he expressed his design and writing abilities, as publisher of a branded publication for the apparel company DAVERSE in Detroit, MI.

He is currently consulting individuals and small organizations at Clarity Consulting and Design on marketing, branding, and content creation in the web 2.0 space.

For more information follow Lawrence at: @Riddick3point0

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