#digitaldad: Nurturing the Vision (Biz Lessons from a 1st time dad)



Today’s lesson is “Nurturing the Vision” as a first-time dad my daughter Kennedy is teaching me incredible business lessons that I would like to share.  If you think about your online personal brand or a start-up business they both require attention, time and development from the principal, founder, and or owner.  The same way a newborn requires parents to feed them, change them, and to protect them so that they can grow. A newborn comes into this world with an immune system that is not build up to be able to fend off harmful bacteria and diseases that could be determinable to their health and well-being.

What would happen if a newborn baby were left to fend for himself or herself on day one?  The answer is clear the newborn would not exist.  But this happens everyday in business we start out with visions of grandeur to develop a multi-million dollar startup business or establishing an online personal brand by setting up profiles in various social networks to establish and we think this alone will cause us to be wildly successful.  Without the visionary creating an environment where the business can grow, without being active and present to manage and develop the business or the online profiles and implement strategies you can do more damage than good.

The build it and they will come mentality will no longer world in today’s economy.

Are you nurturing your vision?

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MBA Chat (#mbachat) Transcript 08/12/10- LeBron James The Personal Brand – Biz Lessons

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The Michigan Tech University – Tech MBA Online program conducts a twitter chat called #mbachat which is about business and education and is open to anyone (an MBA is not required to participate).

The topic from Thursday, August 12, 2010  was ‘LeBron James The Personal Brand – Business Lessons’.

To follow the chats follow hashtag #mbachat ( and Twitter account: @TechMBAOnline) on Thursday’s from 8-9pm EST.

8-Questions from the #mbachat

1. How important is it to know your business objectives (Lessons from LeBron James)

2. How important is it to position yourself to have options? (Lessons from LeBron James)

3. Don’t burn bridges (Lessons from LeBron James)

4. Is there any such thing as loyalty in business (Lessons from LeBron James)

5. How can I maximize business opportunities? (Lessons from LeBron James)

6. Should I think long-term? (Lessons from LeBron James)

7. Should I surround myself with the best team? (Lessons from LeBron James)

8. How do I negotiate from a place of authority (Lessons from LeBron James)

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#digitaldad: Day 3 – Driven by Hunger (Biz Lessons from a 1st time dad)



Today’s blog post is called driven by hunger.  As a first time dad my newborn daughter Kennedy Nicole Flemings is teaching me business lessons that I will be sharing. After watching my daughter nurse for the first time I realized the power of the business lesson that I just witnessed.

A newborn baby is driven by hunger and their job, vision, and focus is for growth.  How valuable would we be as business professionals to our teams, companies, and organization if we had that the same singular focus as a newborn.  When a newborn nurses he or she  latches on to get nutriment.  As successful professionals we have to latch on to our vision and be relentless until we get what we need.  Does your attitude and desire change the environment around you and demonstrate your passionate pursue of your goals?

Driven by Hunger: Kennedy Flemings

How hungry are you for your vision?



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How Portable is your Personal Brand?

How portable is your personal brand? You are responsible to manage your career.  The portability of your personal brand is going to become more important and more of an asset as the workplace changes and we become more hyper-connected.  Let’s first define the meaning of a portable personal brand.

Definition

Portable Personal Brand: It is the ability to take your online personal brand assets with you when you move from company-to-company, change careers, change positions, or transition to being an entrepreneur.  Essentially the digital characteristics and assets of your personal brand move wherever you go.

Why is this important?  The number of times a person changes careers is about 5-7 from the research that I have done.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t provide data on career changes but on the number of jobs a person holds in his/her lifetime (which is 10.8 jobs from ages 18 to 42.) So it is not a matter of if but when you are going to change careers and/or change companies. It is critical that you keep your personal brand portable.

Tips for Portability of your Personal Brand

  • Personal Branded Social URLs: Always maintain separate personal branded accounts.  Your personal social network account URLs should not be tied to the company accounts as the only accounts you have or manage.  When you leave a company your accounts should come with you no questions asked, but this can only happen if you own the accounts.  In an ideal world you want to bring your pre-existing accounts with you to your place of employment if they are relevant.

  • Own Your Network: If the contacts in your network are housed only in the social network there is an inherent risk if your account gets comprised or the terms of service changes.  Your network will become more of an asset in the workplace, not necessarily because of numbers but become of influence.  Create your own personal database from your social network contacts, you need to own your contact list.  Download and import your contacts into a personal list that you own and manage (Note:  If you are tweeting from company accounts legally you don’t own the contact list. Everyone knows there is a difference between contact names and relationships.)
  • Set-up Linkedin Profiles Properly: Set up your Linkedin accounts with your own personal email address (i.e. Gmail account).  There have been situations where people have been locked out of their accounts because the account was set-up with a corporate email address.
  • Own Your Hub (Don’t just rent): Every professional should own the online hub of their personal brand (the online destination/dotcom.)  Make sure your dot com isn’t linked to your current job (i.e. www.HajjFlemingsNike.com.)

Case Study:  Frank Eliason v. Comcast Cares

The new poster child of portable personal branding is Frank Elisaon who most of us have known online as @Comcastcares.  Frank recently changed companies and is no longer the Comcast Cares guy, like LeBron he has decided to take his talents elsewhere (Note:  There was no TV special and Frank left on good terms with Comcast from what I can tell).

Franks former Twitter handle @ComcastCares is obviously not portable and will be maintained by Comcast. Let’s be clear both Comcast and Frank have mutually benefited from the work that was done.  Has Frank lost the total value of his personal brand or the work he has done?  Absolutely not!  There are something’s he will have to start from scratch on and build awareness of his new portable personal brand. If you look at the web location on his Twitter account it is linked to: www.frankeliason.com. Also you can follow Frank on Twitter at @FrankEliason to date he has about 1,700 followers.

@ComcastCares

@FrankEliason

Benefits

One of the major benefits of having a portable personal brand that it can create a unique opportunity for a portable career.  What do I mean by a portable career?  Portable careers are job situations that don’t depend on location with flexible work environments that allow you to do your job remotely for the most part.  With the development of technology:  Skype, WI-FI, and other technologies that allow you to work remotely these types of opportunities are starting to increase.  Portable careers will grow in popularity in the future as work changes.  The forerunner to this is alternative work arrangements which companies have become more comfortable with as a way to provide a benefit to the company and cut cost when they can’t pay an employee more money.

When is this critical?  Portability of your personal brand will come into play the most when you are executing a career change or moving to a new employer.

How Portable is your Personal Brand?

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Staying Invigorated and Forever Young

Keeping Yourself Young

One of the lessons that I received over the weekend, had to do with keeping your faith young. In most cases when we reach maturity in things we do, we are at our best. However being young in something doesn’t always have to be a direct correlation with immaturity.

I recently came a across a slide show that I put together for a really good friend’s wedding. On the soundtrack is a great song, called Forever Young, by Rod Stewart. Although the lyrics seem to be targeted towards a relationship with a son or daughter, I felt the song generally inspires us to stay young.

I strongly feel this is how we should approach our personal brand. Staying young in heart and mind allows you to stay invigorated, passionate, and most important – teachable. As we mature in life, some of the ways to maintain youth is to continue to learn different things that allow you to sharpen your skills and your knowledge base. Here are a few more things to consider:

Pay Attention to Accidental Inspiration
Although I think it is necessary to be purposeful in everything we do,inspiration and creativity many times is accidental. For instance a combination of experiences allowed for me to be inspired to write this post as explained above.  I think it is always good to keep the juices flowing by mixing up the monotony and allowing yourself to be inspired by your experiences. Allowing yourself to be open to different genres and creating new relationships are good ways to mix things up. Just like a fruit smoothie, if you don’t mix it up you will find that all the good stuff is at the bottom.

Be Prepared for a Pivot
Good entrepreneurs are always ready for a potential pivot. Sometimes you start a business or initiative going in a specific direction. However things in the market could change or your customer evolves and you find that you have to take your idea in a different direction. To be prepared for a pivot you have your hand on the pulse of the market and be prepared to make a pivot in another profitable direction. Changing directions sometimes requires energy; it helps to stay young in the mind and be able to learn new things. This can apply to career’s and passion projects as well.

Maintain Momentum
Sometimes it is natural for us to get comfortable and on auto-pilot with our day-to-day responsibilities. Keeping our batteries charged through rest and recuperation, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and constantly staying in practice allows us to keep up with the pace of our purpose in life.

These are things that can edify your day-to-day duties on-the-job or business, relationships with your spouse and kids, and in our friendships. Stay Invigorated and Forever Young.

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