Are you focused on building a better resume? Then my first question is why?
This is a rhetorical question and your answer probably goes something like this. To get my dream job I was taught to go to college, get an education and work that job for 30 plus years.
Part of that process is to put your experience and education on a 8.5 x 11 inch rectangle and tell the world how great you are. What if I told you not to forget about your resume, but to change your focus and focus on creating something that matters? i.e. A Project
Evan Williams talk at TED centered around side projects, which is how Twitter was birthed.
The Building a Better Mousetrap Mentality
We have all heard the saying, “Build a Better Mousetrap.” William C. Hooker invented the spring-loaded mousetrap in 1894. Since its creation there have many different versions: electric, live-catching, glue, inert gas and the list goes on. What has the outcome been of these upgraded mousetraps? Better materials?? Bragging rights?? You feel cooler about using them??
How do you build a better resume? The same way you build a better mousetrap right? You create an online resume with links right? You use social channels right? As a practitioner in the personal branding it is easy to force-feed this mindset down peoples throats. (Note: I am not saying go drink the Kool-Aid and throw away your resume, but re-think what you are focused on.)
Game Changers and their Projects
Listed below are four people who are working on some cool personal projects who won’t need a resume to get their next gig. Guaranteed. These projects are creating major opportunities for these individuals and I guarantee you they are not tweaking their resume to death. They are working on projects that people care about that they have a passion for.
We live in a me two world of imitators and copiers. The explosion of the internet and social media has made it easier than ever to be a duplicate versus living life as an original. Most people settle for being a cheap devalued imitation, a figure head of their own personal brand or a mindless avatar because they think following someone else’s map is easier than downloading their own.
What is a Map?
Wikipedia defines map as a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes.
As a personal brand each person is wired a certain way and understanding how you are wired positions you for greater impact in the space you desire to dominate. We are not designed to live life by default, allowing life to automatically make decisions for us in the absence of a choice being made by you and I as individuals.
Personal Branding Map – It is your plan or a visual representation of you that you develop that will get you to your end goal of implementing your personal brand (operating in your Genius)
Developing your Own Map (This post will only cover three points.)
• Identify Virtual Mentors – Identifying success examples online. (ref. list below)
• Online Research – Twitter Search, Google Readers (Feeds), etc.
• Read Books – Recommended readings Linchpin, Outliners, and The Brand YU Life to name a few.
The deliverable or outcome is to identify your personal brand DNA.
Other Personal Branding Maps
• Seth Godin – Entrepreneur (Marketing)
• Gary Vaynerchuk – Entrepreneur (Businessman, Speaker, and Author)
• Lynn D. Johnson – Corporate – SVP, Social Media at the Advertising Research Foundation
• Tristan Walker – Corporate – Business Developer at Foursquare
• Rohit Bhargava – Corporate (Author and Speaker) – SVP, Strategy & Marketing at Ogilvy 360
• Scott Monty – Corporate – Global Digital and Communications Manager at Ford
Note: Examples listed above are to be used for benchmarking exact duplication of someone else’s map doesn’t guarantee you their results or success.
Closing Thoughts
Most people live life by default and live a life according to the directions of someone else’s map. This leads to frustration and puts them on a road that doesn’t lead them too operating in their Genius. Downloading your specific personal branding map is critical to fully unlocking your genius. This blog post is the first in a series on “Downloading your Own Personal Branding Map.”
The year 2010 is the beginning of a new decade and it is going to be an exciting time that is influenced by social and technological change. The world as we knew it in the last decade will be radically different with more influential female voices.
I am excited to share my personal branding predictions for 2010 and the drivers behind them. As a country the U.S. has outsourced it soul (manufacturing and technological expertise) to other countries leaving creativity and intellectual capital as our centers of excellence. My predictions center around the creativity of human capital and the growing need for character and personal responsibility.
Top-10 Personal Branding Predictions for 2010
1. The Rise of Digital Personalities – With the rise of social search (Bing and Google search engines) brands will be directly impacted and forced to participate in the real-time conversation that is happening online. Personal brands will have to be active to be relevant which will provide an opportunity for their digital personalities (online component of your personal brand) to gain in influence.
2. Growth of Female Personal Brands – Males have long dominated or been the voice of the social media space. I believe that you will start to see the growth of female influence in social media and personal branding. The demographic data shows there are larger numbers of women online in Twitter, Facebook, and the other major social networks. It is a great time to be female and to be web 2.0 savvy. (Note: In Twitter and Facebook women outpace men (Twitter: Women – 60% and Men 40% and Facebook: Women – 57% and Men 43%). Female centric groups mommy bloggers, Blogher.com, etc. will become more influential and prominent.). Twitter List of Influential Women in Social Media Women
3. Sports Industry and Athletes seek Personal Brand Strategist – Some of the most interesting personal branding stories (Tiger Woods, ESPN and Michael Beasley) in 2009 were been centered around athletes and the sports industry. Athletes and their agents will start to identify social media and personal branding strategist to manage their online personal brands. The social media policies that impact the human capital of sports teams, commentators, and other personnel will evolve as well.
4. The Focus on Character will Increase – The importance of character gains momentum, the Tiger Woods saga reinforces the importance of character in personal and corporate brands alike. Facebook and Twitter will continue to be character references and will grow in importance in validating social behavior.
5. Education Influenced by Personal Branding – Personal branding and social tools will continue to impact the learning environment. The subject of personal branding will continue to evolve on college campuses. Workshops and classes alike will continue to grow on college campuses, like Michigan Technological Universities ENT3976 Personal Brand Management.
6. Privacy is Dead – The concept of privacy will go the way of the dinosaur, in other words it is dead. With geo tagging, status updates, social search anyone can identity where you are at and what you are doing at all times. Your online habits will communicate to an employer, potential business partner, or sports team everything they need to know about you as a person. Your life will exist in a stream.
7. Mobile Influence on Personal Brands – The hub of the personal brand will center around mobile devices like iPhone and the Android phone. These devices currently constitute 75% of the smartphone web traffic. The growing number of apps, social search, and the ease of content upload will stimulate personal brand interaction thru their devices.
8.Identifying your Inner Genius – Identifying your passion will be critical. With increase in unemployment, job downsizing, and workload increase people will be forced to identify what they truly love doing and what they were created to do. Success has was defined by high profile, high-paying jobs as those opportunities start to reduce people will be forced to think about what they love doing and will tap into their inner Genius.
9. Corporate and Personal Brand Conflict – Social media polices (David Armano six trends of social media 2010) and graying lines between corporate and personal brands will require individuals to navigate their activity in social networks more carefully whether their on the clock or off. The person and the corporation will have to be responsible in managing and monitoring online personal brand activity, this will be a hot topic.
10. Developing your Personal Brand with Full-time Job (Grustle) – Personal brands will be developed after hours or as entrepreneurial projects. With the decrease in employer loyalty people will start to focus on developing their personal brand passively while maintaining a 9-to-5 job, known as the GRUSTLE.
What are the Terms and Service of your personal brand? According to Wikipedia, Terms of Service (TOS) is defined as rules by which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service. Usually, such terms are legally binding. The average person is typically not in a position to write there own TOS.
As I have been listening online recently there is a very interesting theme occurring with high profile people leaving companies, organizations and changing industries. This has me thinking about the power and ability to leave on your own terms.
High Profile People who are Changing
Oprah Winfreyannounces, The Oprah Winfrey Show ends September 2011 and she will focus on her cable network, OWN = Oprah Winfrey Network.
Allen Iverson announces he is leaving the Memphis Grizzlies for personal reasons (basically because he isn’t starting) and later signs with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Fritz Henderson former CEO of GM is forced to resigned after 8-months
Alec Baldwin announces that he is not interested in acting anymore after 30-years in the profession.
Bobby Bowen built the Florida State University Football program over 34-years and at the end of his tenure is basically asked to step down, but we still want you to help raise funds for the University.
Why are these events significant? This is significant because the world of work is changing and dependence on companies is fleeting. One of the greatest benefits of developing a strong personal brand is to be in a position to write your own Terms of Service. Whether you like Allen Iverson or not he is a first ballot Hall of Famer basketball player and he has decided he is either going to start or not play. That means he has limited his opportunities but has decided to live on his own terms. Oprah Winfrey has decided to develop her own network and be on TV on her own schedule.
The Elite Personal Brands Rewrite the Rules
Elite personal brands rewrite all the rules that we are instructed to follow in college. The ability to do this comes from paying the piper and spending the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book Outliers. As a personal brand I am working to get to the Steve Jobs, Russell Simmons, Oprah level where I can rewrite the rules and live by my own Terms of Service: corporate dress consisting of blue jeans, sneakers, and maybe a baseball cap and start my own television network.
Are you operating on your own Terms of Service (TOS)?
What happens when you get a collection of true thought leaders, entrepreneurs, storytellers, tweeters, visionaries and a world-class athlete in a single room? You get the Brand Camp ’09 experience: engaging conversations with like-minded people that inspire change and transform gray matter with each spoken word and each character of every tweet.
Why Detroit? Detroit is a blue collar, manufacturing town that was built on the back of the automotive industry which was the Silicon Valley of its day. The cheese has moved and Detroit is currently going through a brand crisis. It is the perfect location to discuss how social media, personal branding and passion is changing the way we work and live.
Super Heroes/Professors
The list of Rock stars that rocked Lawrence Tech University providing nutrious content for attendees to consume for 7-hours and shared in short 140 character burst of information.
Is Brand Camp a conference, an experience, or a movement? Only time will tell, but for now it is a passionate community of early adopters who are growing their personal brands and businesses with social media.
