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?

How hungry are you for your vision?



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?

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.

Personal brands operate in one of three worlds: Builders, Grustlers, or Leapers. Now let’s break down the three types, as you read through the descriptions identify which one you are. As a backdrop the workplace is changing, emerging technology is impacting the way we live and communicate, and globalization is shifting when, where and how we work.

Builders (Intrapreneurs) – A builder is a worker that is wired to work in an existing corporate or company structure. Organized working structures typically have regular pay periods, access to company resources, and systems/processes in place that allows people to work in a structured environment. This type of individual enjoys working for someone else and building someone else’s dreams while developing themselves and their personal brand. Most universities and colleges teach students to auto-follow this mentality regardless of how a person is wired because it has been the safe option historically. The biggest benefits of this category are the halo effect and company resources.

Benefits of Builders

• Halo Effect – Working for a large corporation can position you for great opportunities that are a direct result of your association with the company you work for.

• Company Resources – The resources that are available at a large corporation can be very beneficial to your career: experience using enterprise software, databases, cool projects and access to priority data.

• Expanded Network – Great network building opportunities: attending conferences, company networking events, and the visibility to higher-level executives.

Examples: Jeremiah Owyang

Grustlers (Hybrids) – GRUSTLE is the combination of a daily Grind (job) and a Hustle (your passion). In my book ‘The Brand YU Life’ the first degree (or principle) is ‘Identify Your Passion’ which is the cornerstone of Grustlin’.

Definitions

Grind: A grind is a job; employment; typically your primary source of income.

Hustle: A hustle is your passion, what you would love to do full-time and what gives you the most satisfaction. It is what you typically do after you work your daily grind.

Your career/job is the primary source of income that you use to seed your passion. This is a minimal risk option that allows you to develop and grow your ideas without the pressure or financial weight of doing it full-time. This personal brand type tends to operate as more of a transitional phase for people shifting from being a builder to a leaper. There are various forms of Grustle: (1) Being a college student and establishing a blog or having a 9-to-5 job and starting a business on the side are two examples.

Benefits of Grustlers

• Future Job Security – Operating in a grustle is a new form of job security. Depending upon a single employer or a single career to be your financial source for your entire career is more risky than ever before.

• Additional Financial Stream – Grustling allows you to add an additional financial revenue stream in your area of passion.

• Career Transition – It is a career strategy to enable you to transition into a new career that doesn’t mesh with your past work history or educational background.

• Practice over Theory – It allows you to demonstrate your capabilities in the real world versus claiming expertise in theory. It goes beyond what you learned in the classroom.

Examples: Gary Vaynerchuk

Leapers (Entrepreneurs) – Pure entrepreneurship doesn’t appear typically to be innate because it is talked out of us as a child by parents and teachers. In college we are brainwashed to think of ourselves as builders only. It is only after years of making someone else rich, being downsized, outsourced, or fired that we are forced to follow our passion. Some do arrive here after working for someone else and having a great work experience.

Benefits of Leapers

• You own the results – The risk and reward is greater but you own the results the fruits of your labor.

• Lifestyle Management – Leapers have the most impact on their work environment whether it is a home office, co-working, coffee shops, or cubicles.

• Leaders of Innovation – Small enterprises with less bureaucracy are typically the innovative companies which are lead by visionary leapers.

Examples: Kevin Carroll, Mark Zuckerberg

Note: It is possible to be a hybrid of each type as you transition from one phase to another.

People will tell you that you need to work on your own. That is not necessarily true. You have to identify how you are wired. The pressure of being financially responsible for a company is a hugh undertaking your timing and developing must be right. Being true to where you are is the key. There are great success stories in each category.

How you manage your online personal brand should be dictated by the type of personal brand that you are and the stage of your career that you are in.

Demographics

• Baby boomers (1946-1964) – This group was born during the automotive manufacturing age in the United States and they worked for someone else. If they went to college they were taught to be loyal to their employer. Category: Builders
  

• Gen Y (1965-1976) – This group started our careers in the end of the automotive manufacturing boom but were still taught to go to school and work and be loyal to your employer. Category: Builders
  

• Millennials (1977-1994) - Economy tanks. They are born grustlers. This hyperconnected group is blogging, multi-tasking and developing online businesses. Category: Grustlers
  

Identify your personal branding type: Builder, Grustler, or Leaper. The Leaper lifestyle is glorified because it can be a great rag to riches story, or one that changes the world like Microsoft (Bill Gates) or Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg). It can be a recipe of disaster if you are not wired for it.

Do you want to be influential or are you comfortable with being mediocre? As a personal brand, there is no prerequisite saying that you have to be influential over millions of people. However while maintaining a personal brand online, you are secretly charged with being a curator of content or solutions for the people who follow you. This is the value that you offer to your audience, regardless to if you have 1 million followers or 300.

As a curator, you share the best content or solutions online for your followers and advocates to consume. For years, news organizations, magazine editors, radio disc jockey’s, and fashion stylists have curated pop culture for us and when we sniffed, bit, and accepted what they offered, many brands have reaped major success in return. With social media giving some of that power back to us, we have individually been able to take on the role of civilian editors; sharing and publishing content links. Doing this successfully, can pay considerable dividends for your personal brand. We have 7-Tips, that we think will help you do this effectively to maintain a healthy brand and establish influence with your audience.

Passion
The internet oozes with passionate people. Everyone online usually stakes the house on what they believe in. Passion is necessary in order to get people to believe in you and the things you share. If you recommend content, products, or any type of solution online, you better show them with strong conviction why you think it was great. Otherwise they may perceive your offering as a waste of their time. Inject energy and passion into anything you publish and share.

Don’t Ride the Wave of Fads
Fads come and go like the wind. If you want to have a personal brand that is relevant, make sure your recommendations have substance that transcends fad status. There are also many things you recommend that naturally have short life cycles. So for instance if you recommend the iPhone 3GS and the new iPhone 4 comes out, that is a natural progression in that product. This doesn’t mean they are in fad status and as a curator you have to be able to decipher which is what. For example, Myspace wasn’t necessarily a fad, however the company failed to innovate, which helped it secure it’s approaching spot in oblivion.

Fan-boy-ism is Allowed
Fan-boys and fan-girls are mocked and ridiculed; many times rightful so. Heres the skinny, if you are crazy about a brand or a good piece of published works — sing its praises to the roof tops! However, be able to recognize any faults of a brand you recommend. Don’t be a blind lover, see the truth and the truth only.

Regurgitate Excerpts, But Only With Your Personality
One of the tenets of being a curator of content online is that if you are going to recommend or share existing published works, do so with respect. When you do this, it is good to link back to the source. Regurgitating someone else’s good work, gets your personal brand card revoked real quick. When referencing someone else’s work, point back to that content through linking and give your own personalized twist on why you thought it was a great piece of work.

Quality is King
Museum curators are heralded because of the great body of work they manage to source in their museum. This is no different for your personal brand. Share and present works to your followers that is tasty. It helps if the content or brand you are sharing is relevant and current to the times. Reality is that quality is in the eye of the beholder, but if you have a good handle on who your followers are, you will hit the mark most of the time. Which brings us to our next point…

Know Your Followers
When engaging your followers, its best to know the make up of the group. If you don’t have a connection with many people that are super tech savvy, it wouldn’t be wise to talk about computer motherboards or microprocessors. It’s not relevant to them and the information doesn’t add value to them.

Be Right.
If you say that something is good or encourage people to try a brand, your recommendation has to be right. Are you going to knock it out of the park all the time? Probably not. Will people the click links to every single article you send their way? Probably not. But the higher you’re batting average, the more people will be eager to listen to what you have to say.

Go out and curate, I am looking forward to being influenced by you.

We are all witnesses. This message has never rang more true then on July 8^th at 9PM EST. This moment will forever be etched in the history of basketball lore. The decision, the debate, the letter (Dan Gilbert), and the statement (. . .taking my talents to South Beach).

LeBron has been a prodigy before he stepped on the world stage as a sophomore at St.Vincent - St. Mary’s High School in Arkon, Ohio. As fans we could not get enough of ‘King James’ we purchased his jerseys, watched his games, wore his shoes and drank his water (Vitamin Water.) We watched in amazement as he has grown from an 18-year old young man into a businessman with aspirations of being the first billion-dollar athlete.

Sports is a Business, Period.

Sports is a business, period. It is a dog eat dog world. I don’t see any NBA owners running to the aid of Antoine Walker who is in debt after earning over $110M and supporting 75-people. Why because it is business?

Was LeBron wrong for ‘The Decision’? The decision to leave, no he was a free agent. The decision to blast his hometown on global TV, yes. There was nothing good that could possibly come out of the event even if he raised $2.5M for charity. Brand building is a very violate undertaking. Every decision, every relationship, every move, every word can grow, jeopardize, and/or destroy everything you have ever worked your entire personal and professional life.

Historic Basketball Note: Michael Jordan was essentially forced out of Chicago after being loyal to the Bulls and delivering 6-NBA championships. Michael Jordan was given the door by the Wizards once he stopped playing basketball. How loyal should an athlete or an employee be to an employer?

Financial Impact of LeBron

For anyone who thinks the decision was not about finance is living under a rock. For LeBron it wasn’t about maximizing his earning potential with his NBA contract but let’s take a look at the numbers.

• The City of Cleveland generated $3.7M per Cleveland Cavalier home game .
• Cavaliers were 2^nd in home attendance with near 100% capacity (2010-11).
• Cavaliers team valuation in Forbes dropped from $476M to $390M.
• Heat road attendance was 93% it will exceed 100% in 2010-11
• He will save an estimated $25M in state taxes signing with Miami.
• LeBron leaves $15M on the table (Sign & Trade)
• Stock prices of the publicly traded Madison Square Garden dropped.
• Each playoff game in NYC or New Jersey would deliver a $3.6M financial impact to the region.
• ‘The Decision’ raises $2.5M for the Boys & Girls Club.
• ‘The Decision’ was the third-most-watched program on cable television 2010 (9.95M watched).
• Rating as a viable endorser only fell from 69.9% to 67.6% (This may change)
• Jersey sells for LeBron is #2 behind Kobe.

LeBron’s Personal Brand – A Typical Millennial

LeBron is a typical Millennial and his behavior aligns with the characteristics of that demographic.

Characteristics of a Millennial (A few of the traits LeBron exhibited)

• They are becoming empowered personal brands in the workplace and are impacting their employers and the way they communicate.
• Blended work life that allows them to work when, how and where they want to.
• They want to work with their friends.
• They share their lives online (in this case TV)

What drove his decision?

What decision would have been best for LeBron depends on what was most important to him?

• Basketball Legacy: The best move for basketball legacy would have been: Cleveland or Chicago
• Financial: New York. Hugh media market and increased endorsement opportunities.
• Championships: Miami or Chicago. Miami provides that option while playing with his friends.
• Personal Brand: Cleveland. Great story hometown hero impacts the local economy economically. If he would have won a championship his legacy would have locked.
• Personal Satisfaction: Miami. I believe he wanted to be happy and felt that playing in Miami with D.Wade was going to provide that.

What is the true impact? It depends on the metrics you are measuring. Legacy, financial, strength of personal brand, value to marketers, and/or online sentiment. Financially I believe there will be little impact. Unless there is a major character issue or another PR stunts like ‘The Decision’. His contract with the Heat is guaranteed. His major sponsors like Nike aren’t going anywhere. (He probably won’t sell too many shoes in Cleveland.)

My Personal Opinion: The strategy LeBron and his team used to communicate ‘The Decision’ was ill conceived and over the top knowing he was leaving Cleveland. You don’t diss your hometown on TV. LRMR and LeBron have a PR, social media and trust nightmare on their hands and whatever other word you want to use. I also believed he should have personally called Dan Gilbert prior to the special. Since LeBron didn’t return a call or text to Dan Gilbert since the season ended there is probably more to this story beneath the surface that we may never know. At the end of the day it is business.

However, I commend LeBron for making a business decision not driven by emotions. As a personal brand you need to do what is going to help you live the most fulfilled life, also understanding that you have to be able to live with the results of your decision. At the end of the day the final chapter of his personal brand is not written I believe it is going to boil down to what he does on the court. As we all know winning has a way of changing things.

Let me know your thoughts.

What inspires you in life? This Pantene commercial is about a deaf and mute girl that learns to play the violin against all odds. What challenges do you face in life that you complain about? If she can overcome the odds in her life what is stopping you?

Choose to be different and live your dreams. Don’t live your life to just be like others.

Jason Falls is a thought leader in the new media space and I had an opportunity to talk with him recently about social media strategy.

Social Media Explorer is the online home and blog of Social Media Explorer LLC, which is my consulting company. I’ve been called all sorts of things by folks around the social media, public relations, marketing and communications industries. I shy away from self-aggrandizement.

I see myself as a social media educator, a social media strategist and a public relations professional. I help companies understand the social web and show them how engaging consumers online can help their business. I’m also a writer, both of blogs and other materials, and try to spend much of my spare time doing that.

If I have a unique perspective it would be the result of having lead a national advertising agency’s Interactive and social media efforts, working with Fortune 100 brands as a social media strategist and serving as an independent consultant in the social media industry. I have advised major, regional and niche brands including Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark and Knob Creek bourbons, NASCAR driver Robby Gordon, Humana, Gary C. Johnson Law Offices, Purely Products, SHPS, Sun Tan City, Mighty Dog, Louisville Slugger, Bionic Gloves, The National Center for Family Literacy and WeSeed.com.

SocialMediaExplorer.com, the blog, gets a fair amount of recognition, of which I’m very grateful. The most notable of which is probably listing in the top 20 or so (it changes daily sometimes) of the Advertising Age Power 150 Blogs. For a few weeks in 2009, I was actually ranked No. 1. (Not sure why.)

Nuggets from our Interview

• Social Media strategy: Start with the end in mind.
• Social Media strategy is about setting measurable goals.
• Make your social media goals singular.
• After the goals are established then you can focus on tactics of how to get their.

How to Follow Jason

Twitter: @JasonFalls

Blog: www.SocialMediaExplorer.com

The word consistency is defined by Webster’s dictionary as steady, regularity, and free from variation. One of the most enduring and important characteristics of strong brands: personal, business, non-profit, or service is consistency. Being consistent is about establishing a pattern of behavior that is expected by your target audience.

This post focuses on numerical or data consistency. Consistency of voice, tone, personality, behavior, culture, image and message are the constants that have to be established and delivered on for all successful brands. The sample group I have selected has been basis to consist of people delivering quality content in a targeted area.

Personal Brands with Numerical Consistency

My sample group consist of Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, PR Sarah Evans, MC Hammer and Kobe Bryant. I took a swag at some very high level data: quantity of tweets and number of blog posts. Let me lay down the ground rules I am not stating by any means because someone tweets a lot they will have a loyal committed following that is organically grown. I am also not saying that because you post regularly that you will become a rock star.

I am focusing on the behavior and patterns of people who are successful in the new media space and adding in the best active basketball player (Kobe Bryant) in the known world based upon results (winning and championships.) There is something that happens when a person goes to work every single day and produces quality stuff. Your reputation begins to spread, your colleagues begin to take notice, promotions begin to surface, and new career opportunities begin to open up. Your network begins to expand because there is something that is inspiring about being around people that produce, being around change agents, and people who are not only passionate but committed to execute on their ideas.

Kobe Bryant is the gold standard for active NBA players by which everyone is being judged against.

(Note: The average number of tweets per day is an average over the life of active Twitter account and is not weighted for current activity.)

Result of Consist Behavior

According to John Jantusch Author of The Referral Engine and Duct Tape Marketing blog he states that it 17 brand impressions of a company before a typical buyer will consider doing businesses. There is a threshold for personal brands as well before customers, career opportunities, and business opportunities will be generated.

What is the result of consistent output of relevant content to a target audience? Consistency creates loyalty, impacts behavior, and connects people emotionally. The business opportunities that can come from consistency are: endorsements, additional financial streams, expanded network, book deals, speaking gigs, and delivering championships to name a few.

The Michigan Technological University’s School of Business and Economics – Tech MBA Online has developed a Career Re-Tool Workshop to help you Re-Tool, Re-Wire and Re-Think your career and future.

This FREE event is designed to enable you to evaluate your career planning strategy and position you to grow personally and professionally. This is a must attend event for job seekers, those in career transitions and people who want to re-tool themselves for promotion in a challenging job market.

Register Today!!!! Seats are limited!!!!

Register at: http://bit.ly/2010retool

Speakers

Hajj E. Flemings – Personal Brand Strategist/Founder of Brand Camp University

Brenda Rudiger – Director of Alumni Relations at Michigan Technological University

Paul J. Hindelang - President at Results Systems Corporation

Agenda

Networking

Re-Tooling yourself with Education

We will explore the value of education as a career strategy to help you stay globally competitive in a challenging job market. This session will focus on the benefits of an MBA and higher education to empower you to reinvent and re-think your future.

Re-Wiring your Career with Social Networks and Online Tools

Come and learn how to rewire yourself through social networks and online channels to connect with companies and identify new career opportunities. Become a person that understands how to translate their network into value.

Re-Thinking your Financial Strategy

Has your 401K got you down? It is time to re-think your financial strategy and prepare financially for your career transition? Come and get fresh new ideas for investing, financial planning, insurance and social security.

The MBA Chat (#mbachat) is a 1-hour discussion on Twitter where anyone can participate in our open source conversation. The Twitter Chat on Thursday, July 8th 8:00pm-9:00pm EST will include Vincent Hunt (@VincentHunt) and Hajj E. Flemings (@HajjFlemings) who will answer questions.

Topic: The Art of a Start-Up
Recently there was an article posted on Michigan Tech MBA Online blog about ‘Thinking Like a Startup‘ that promoted the discussion for this MBA Chat. What drives the thinking of Seth Godin, Jason Fried, Guy Kawasaki, Evan Williams, Paul Graham and others in the Startup world?

Bio

Vincent Hunt is the creator of Beyond Pretty Things; a blog about design, innovation and rocket ships and the founder of the Vincent Hunt Company, a Design Thinking Company, tactical in conceptualizing and developing breakthrough ideas for new products, services and brands. An intuitive design thinker, Vincent is sought after for his keen ability to generate disruptive ideas and insight on emerging creative economy trends.

How to Follow and Participate
To participate you can use http://search.twitter.com or http://tweetgrid.com/. Watch for tweets with the hashtag #mbachat and follow the conversation on the @TechMBAOnline Twitter account.

This chat is sponsored by Michigan Tech MBA Online program: www.mbaonline.mtu.edu.

Brian Solis is one of my virtual mentors. I follow his work online in the new web and I think he is one of the smartest in the space. I had the pleasure of interviewing him and to talk briefly about his latest book, “Engage”

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media marketing and branding agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club and is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup.

Nuggets from our Interview

• Engage was written to help companies build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web.
• Engage is a book designed to scale with you as you grow whether you are a small business, non-profit or being a part of an enterprise organization.”
• Champions effect change.
• Being an expert doesn’t engender change being a champion does

Quote

“Who I am today and who I want to be tomorrow are separated by the things I do today.” – Brian Solis

How to Follow Brian

Twitter: @BrianSolis

Blog: www.BrianSolis.com

It has been over 20-years since Marvin Gaye’s sang the national anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star game in Los Angles, and it is chronicled as one of the greatest renditions ever. What lessons can be learned from watching the national anthem?

The 5-Personal Branding lessons

• Integrate your Personal DNA – Personal Branding is about exposing people to what makes you special. Your image, your style, and your presence are centric to what draws your fans, your community, or your tribe to you as Seth Godin would say. Be who you are! You can set-up Fan pages, tweet all day, and have a million dollar website but if you don’t bring your personal DNA to the table you are wasting time and money.
• Take Everything to the Next Level: No matter what it is that you do it can always be taken to the next level even it if is the national anthem which is a poem originally written by a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key in 1814.
• Mastery – Success is about mastery. Malcolm Gladwell calls it ‘10,000 hours’ and Jim Collins says, ‘Good is the Enemy of Great’ but personal branding is about consist delivery of excellence in a focused area.
• Social Media isn’t about technology – Social Media as we call it today is not about the technology. The technology will change as it has from radio, to TV, to the Internet. Social media is another medium to communicate your compelling story.
• Be Original – If you compare the greatest national anthems of all-time each artist brought something unique and original to the table. Be original and always bring your worldview to your art.

As a personal brand what impact will you make? Will people continue to talk about the legacy, the impact, and the mark you made 20-years after you are gone?

I was inspired to write this after reading a Facebook post from Marjora Carter.

Thanks Majora!!!

From ‘The Brand Man’

Leave your Mark!!!!

Can a personal brand be defined by numbers? Let’s talk about it. To set the tone for this blog post let’s talk numbers anything that you want to grow you need to measure. As a personal brand what are the numbers that you should be focused on?

I decided to compile a list of some of the top personal brands and people that I highly respect in terms of their passion and business acumen. Here are some of their numbers:

Facebook Friends/Fans

• Joseph Jaffe – Founder of Crayon which was recently acquired by Powered and author of ‘Flip the Funnel. (3,252)
• Rohit Bhargava – SVP Senior VP, Strategy & Marketing / Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence/Author of ‘Personality Not Included’ (2,300)
• Gary Vaynerchuk – Author of ‘Crush It’ and Founder of ‘WineLibrary.TV’ – 46,723 – Rock Star Numbers
• Lady Gaga – Musician (10,959,266) – Rock Star Numbers

Blog Comments

• Seth Godin (www.SethGodin.com) - Author of ‘Linchpin’ and over dozen best selling books and runs the most read Marketing blog on the planet. There are no comments because Seth doesn’t allow you to leave any. (0)
• Sarah Evans (www.PRSarahEvans.com) - She is the President of Chicago based public relations and new media consultancy Sevans Strategy and runs #journchat. (23 - Average number of comments per blog post in 2010)
• Darren Rowse (www.ProBlogger.net) - Founder of ProBlogger.net and co-author of ‘Pro Blogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income’ ) – Rock Star Numbers

Twitter followers

• Kevin Carroll (www.kevincarrollkatalyst.com) - Author of ‘Little Red Ball’ talks about the concept of play and is a internationally sought after speaker. (1,841)
• Noah Brier (www.NoahBrier.com) - Works for the The Barbarian Group and created Brand Tags and was on one of Fast Company’s 2009 100 Most Creative People (3,964)
• Tony Hsiesh (www.Zappos.com) - CEO of Zappos and Author of ‘Delivering Happiness’ (1,704,249) – Rock Star Numbers

Blog Post

• Evan Williams – Founder of Twitter. Over the last year has three blog post to EVHead.com (3)
• Guy Kawasaki – Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, Author of ‘Reality Check’ and 8-other books.
• Majora Carter – From 2001 to 2008 she was Executive Director of the non-profit she founded: Sustainable South Bronx – where she pioneered green-collar job training and placement systems in one of the most environmentally and economically challenged parts of the US. This MacArthur “genius” is now president of her own economic consulting firm, a co-host on Sundance Channel’s The Green, and host of a new special public radio series called, The Promised Land. Spoke at TED. (10)
• Emily Pilloton – Founder of Project H Design/Author of a Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People. Spoke at Pop Tech. Doesn’t have a blog. (0)
• Chris Brogan – Founder of New Marketing Labs/Author of ‘Trust Agents’ (Blogs Like everyday) – Rock Star Numbers

Videos Uploaded in YouTube

• Mitch Joel – Author of ‘Six Pixels of Separation’/Founder of Twist Image. Number of videos uploaded in YouTube (into the Twist Image & Mitch Joel Accounts). Runs an extremely popular audio podcast that you can subscribe to on iTunes. (6)
• Chris Pirillo - Chris has been participating in Internet conversations since 1992, having launched Lockergnome as a content publishing network and building Gnomedex to be one of the blogosphere’s highly regarded conferences. (2,880) – Rock Star Numbers

E-Commerce Sites

• Tom Peters - There are no financial transactions made on his site. Clicks Required to Make a Financial Transaction: (0)
• Mark Victor Hansen - Author of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’) – Rock Star Numbers

If you listen to the tips of all the ‘EXPERTS’ they will tell you that you need to: blog everyday (or regularly), you should do video, you should write a book, you should have an insane number of Twitter followers, you need 10’s of thousands of Facebook friends/fans and you should have an e-commerce site that you can make a financial transaction within three clicks.

Maybe I am looking at this issue beyond the numbers because I only have 5,300 Twitter followers and 3,280 Facebook friends. Maybe my opinion is jaded because I don’t have the big numbers, but my point is find the numbers that matter to your personal brand versus chasing others. My blog post is not about the numerical silver bullet for personal branding but that looking purely at numbers will not always accurately tell the story or the strength of the personal brand.

Let me know what numbers impact your personal brand?

(Note: The data for this blog post was as of 07/05/10)