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.

She is the President of Chicago based public relations and new media consultancy Sevans Strategy and runs #journchat. She is an influencer in the new media/pr communities and is a great personal branding case study. She has emerged as a leader in the social space but she isn’t an overnight success she has earned her stripes and put in the time.

I really wanted to share Sarah Evans story to inspire other women who believe they have a message that the world needs to hear. One of the great things that I like about Sarah’s story is that she has turned her passion into a career/profit.

Earlier this year she was featured in Vanity Fair with a list of other influential women in social media, which obviously has tremendously impacted her business. The flip side of this story is that Sarah received some negative feedback from some of her peers about the article since it didn’t appropriately reflect women in tech or show a diverse perspective. After talking with Sarah it showed me her depth as a person as she tackled the situation head on when confronted with those facts and addressed the valid concerns with some of those same peers.

#journchat

Sarah Evans is the originator of Twitter Chats. She launched #journchat in December 2008 which has hosted CNN and will host NBC News later this year

How to Follow Sarah Evans

There are a million ways to follow Sarah online I have listed some of the main ways below.

Twitter: @PRSarahEvans
Blog: www.PRSarahEvans.com
Twitter Chat: #journchat (Monday’s 7:30pm-10:00pm CST)

For Other Influential Women in Social Media

Check out my Twitter List of Influential Women in Social Media:

The free agent period starts July 1st with an official signing date of July 8th. Careers, sports franchises and the lives of GMs, team presidents, coaches and their families hang in the balance. A wrong decision could handicap a team for many years to come.

Let’s first start with a quick history lesson on free agency. Do the names Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally ring a bell? Probably not. Well they ushered in modern day free agency in 1975 when they challenged Major League Baseball in arbitration and won.

As personal brands we are all professional business athletes but instead of playing on a field we work in a field. Let’s contrast NBA free agents vs personal branding free agents.

Free Agent Definitions

NBA: There are two types of NBA free agents restricted and unrestricted. For the purpose of this article we will focus on an unrestricted free agent, which is a player who can sign with any team he wants.

Personal Brands: According to Daniel Pink (Author of Free Agent Nation): A free agent is someone who works untethered from a large organization—a free-lancer, a sole proprietor, the operator of a very small business.
Should Daniel Pink’s definition of free agents extend beyond soloprenurs to include intrapreneurs as well who have positioned themselves for new opportunities?

Market Value

As I watch the story of Powered a full-service social media agency unfold it is a great business story on personal branding free agents.

How do you develop a team? In sports, teams can build through the draft getting young players and building around them. In the business world this would be the evaluate of hiring millennial and developing them. The other option is signing free agents or trading (acquiring). Recently Powered has acquired talent through the free agent route acquiring: Crayon (Joseph Jaffe), Step Change, Drill Team, and Conversation Agent (Valarie Maltoni). For more details on this story read Jeremiah Owyang, article, FirstTake: Powered, A Social Marketing Suite, Acquires Crayon and Social Media Agencies

Q: Performance impact in NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Stats and how you perform under pressure
• Personal Brands: Popularity of your blog (Adage 150, page views) and engagement online (Klout Metrics), book sales, and speaking gigs to name a few.

Q: Reputation impact in NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Background checks, family history, off the court history and run ins with the law
• Personal Brands: Online Brand Reputation, valid your activity in social networks, and listen to your data stream in your social networks

Total Compensation

As a personal brand it is a great time to diversify yourself to create greater marketing opportunities. Establishing a personal brand is really about more than just creating a blog and tweeting but being portable and leveraging your personal DNA being who you were designed to be.

Q: Endorsements for NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Shoe deals, product commercials, etc.
• Personal Brands: More and more opportunities for influencers with a strong personal brand presence to experience endorsements with large brands: For example Usage of Ford’s Fiesta Movement Challenge and GM’s Chevy SXSW

Q: Rock Stars NBA vs. Personal Brands

NBA: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki
Personal Brands: Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Charlene Li, Wayne Sutton

Would you rather be an NBA star or a strong personal brand? Goes back to the Michael Jordan v Bill Gates argument. Would you rather be an NBA Free Agent or a Personal Brand Free Agent?

History chronicles those that finish. We rarely talk about the runner-up, second place, or the 500-page book manuscript that you wrote but never published. Personal branding is captured in one word is finishing. One of the people that I have a great deal of respect for is Seth Godin who has talked about this topic at length and has packaged it as shipping.

Reasons Why we Like Starting Stuff

• Big Bodacious Teams: At the start of a project, leaders and teams are galvanized and inspired to change the world.
• The Shiny Objective Syndrome: People love working and focusing on new task, projects, and the flavor of the day. Even entrepreneurs believe that they can do the impossible.
• Excitement – Launching an idea is typically very energizing.
• Drinking Bathwater – People who would drink your bath water because they think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread gassing your head up.

What is the value of finishing?

• Building Mindshare: Mindshare is owning a slice of mental real estate in the mind of your target audience. Building a strong personal brand is established over time by finishing projects that are consistent with your personal brand objectives.
• Creating a culture of execution: You begin to approach projects, ideas, and businesses with the mindset of starting things that you are intentionally planning on finishing. Your life becomes a series of completed projects or ideas that slowly build or speak your consistency. People began to identify you as a person that executes.

• Conversion: Finishing is about converting objectives into strategies. To complete anything that is significant you have to create small victories on the road of completion. Finishing forces you to strategically approach your work in a way that will result in measurable objectives you complete.

Tips for Finishing

• Set measurable goals and objectives.
• Validate the objectives align with your personal mission and purpose. The end result should add value to your personal brand.
• Shorten your list: You are not creating a list to sound or look important.

What Finishing Means to your Personal Brand

Finishing is not about being a rocket scientist or throwing junk together but about establishing clear objectives and aligning strategies to make those objectives a reality. Personal Branding taken a step further is about completing projects that are mission and purpose driven and align with your passion, the way you are wired and your personal brand DNA. The end results is attaching your name and your legacy to finished projects, ideas, or products that aligns, builds, and strengthens your personal brand.

Come and pick the brains of these practitioners who are living the entrepreneurship lifestyle and not just talking about it in theory.

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.

#mbachat Guest

Melinda Emerson – Author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 months/Host of #Smallbizchat

Melinda Emerson “Smallbizlady” is a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach. Her areas of expertise include small business start-up, business development and social media strategy.  Melinda hosts #Smallbizchat, a weekly talk show on Twitter.  #Smallbizchat is the trusted resource on Twitter to discuss everything entrepreneurs need to know about launching and running a profitable small business.  Melinda has been featured on NBC Nightly News and in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report and Black Enterprise.  Melinda publishes a resource blog www.succeedasyourownboss.com and has several special reports including 44 Things To Do Before You Go Into Business and The 12 Cardinal Sins of Small Business—and How to Avoid Them! Melinda’s first book Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to Start a Business that Works!” was released in March 2010 by Adams Media. For more information, please visit www.melindaemerson.com

Matt Wilson, Co-founder of Under30CEO.com

Matt Wilson is co-founder of Under30CEO.com a website dedicated to giving young entrepreneurs the tools and resources they need to succeed.  After using social media to create huge buzz online around the brand, landing Under30CEO on MSNBC and BusinessWeek, he began helping others build their brands online through his own digital marketing agency.  Wilson’s passion for entrepreneurship began at Bryant University after where he led the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization to becoming the world’s #1 entrepreneurship organization and earned personal accolades as National Student Leader of the Year.  His personal mission is to inspire young people to use technology to create opportunity and become leaders.

If Matt is around he will be easy to spot as his long luxurious hair is generally flowing freely in the breeze.

Cindy W. Morrison – Author of  Girlfriend 2.0/Emmy Award-Winning TV Broadcaster

Emmy award winning TV Broadcaster Cindy W Morrison successfully reinvented herself after the economy lead to corporate downsizing. Leaving a 20 year news career behind, Cindy wrote a book, hit the speaking circuit and created her own consulting business. She now teaches people how to reboot, upgrade and reinvent through networking, social media and branding so they can make more money and live a better life.

Cindy’s new book “Girlfriends 2.0″ is already a cult favorite and she hosts a popular show by the same name for The WIN Online (Women’s Information Network). Plus, Cindy does a weekly radio show with the founder of the Diva Toolbox based on the Girlfriends 2.0 concept. The idea is to empower women to reboot and upgrade their Girlfriend Network so they can not only survive but thrive our changing times

Cindy also speaks across the country about “Reinvention 2.0″ and how anyone can network strategically to be more successful. In fact, Cindy is the media contributor to Startup Princess which has been named one of the top women’s websites by Forbes and Entrepreneur. As a consultant, Cindy’s clients range from TV stations to major universities to heavy hitting corporations. Cindy helps companies and individuals use social media to create brand loyalty and get the kind of media coverage that money can’t buy.

The live video footage of Hajj E. Flemings speaking at Ignite Detroit on April 5, 2010.

The Re-Education of the Disposable Worker Speech Discription

We live in the era of the Disposable Worker (DW). How does Detroit/America re-educate it’s human resources to prepare workers for the new economy. This presentation will focus on re-branding, re-thinking, re-inventing and re-educating DWs into thinking about themselves as the new factory.

The poster child of corporate culture and the usage of technology to connect with customers is Zappos.  Zappos is ran by one of the smartest, most relevant CEOs on the planet Tony Hsieh.  What does Tony do?  Does he build brands, create corporate culture, deliver happiness or all three? I had the opportunity to hangout with Tony Hsieh and the Zappos Team in March 2010 in Austin, TX on the Happiness Bus at SXSW.  I experienced the Zappos corporate culture for a few hours and I will validate he is doing all three.

I am an avid reader and I am excited to share with you the latest book that I am reading, “Delivering Happiness:  A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh.  Tony is a proven leader who is living what he is teaching. He has developed two companies LinkExchange which was sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1995 and Zappos.com which was sold to Amazon.com for $1.2B in 2009. 

Be a part of the movement his book ships June 7^th purchase part of his brain for under $25, what a deal.

Zappos’ Core Values

The Framework of the Culture

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

Follow Tony/Zappos
Follow: @DHBook (Delivering Happiness Book Twitter Account)
Follow: @Zappos (Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zapppos)
Blog: www.DeliveringHappinessBook.com

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.

•    Noah Brier – Creator of BrandTags.net – Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business (2009)
•    Evan Williams -  Founder of Twitter (Enough said)
•    Gina McCauley – Founder of Blogging While Brown – Essence Magazine 25 Most Influential African- Americans (2007)
•    Noah Everett –  Founder of Twitpics – Twitter’s most popular photo sharing site.  Valued at $10 Million?

What is your side project?

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.