This guest contribution to Executive Update is contributed by Kate Cunningham, who writes on the topics of online university rankings. She welcomes your questions and comments at her email Id: cn.kate1 @ gmail.com.
The concept of personal branding is not a particularly old one. It began as a self-help management technique that distinguished itself from mere self-improvement. Just like product brands, personal brands must be packaged. And so, the whole point of personal branding grew out of the expanding idea of product branding. The personal branding philosophy was one that emphasized appearances. Personal branding basically says that if you seem a certain way consistently enough, then you gain trust, you gain career success.
However, I would say that product brands today aren't what they were 20 or even 10 years ago. According to Wikipedia, the first known article to employ the term "personal branding" was a 1997 Fast Company essay written by Tom Peters entitled “The Brand Called You.” A careful reading of this essay demonstrates how much things have changed since in the realm of personal branding. Rereading this essay published over 10 years ago can perhaps tell us how we can re-envision personal branding conceptually so that it will mesh better with current trends.
Peters subtitles his essay with "Today, big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. Here's what it takes to be the CEO of Me, Inc." Right off the bat, we can see how this string of buzzwords isn't as relevant today. With the drastic rise of social networking in business, we are not as caught up in the age of the "Individual" with a capital I. Instead, we are much more social. Networking is no longer a meaningless buzzword – it's an actual reality. We are defined just as much by our interconnected webs, by which we are in relation to others, as we are by what, in Peters' words "makes us stand out".
Of course, Peters does mention networking, and he mentions it often. But this was well before the Wikinomics of today, an economic climate that isn't only dominated by big branding companies but instead is seeing new promise in startups run by casual friends or colleagues across the globe. Thomas Friedman's NY Times op-ed about the startup EndoStim is a perfect example.
In one instance Peters says, "...the big trick to building your personal brand is to find ways to nurture your network of colleagues--consciously." After reading this sentence, I was struck by a suggestion of "self" before the word "consciously."
Nowadays, self-consciousness can easily be detected in an environment in which forums - consumers talking to consumers - dominate. Now as never before, consumers demand customized value, not just pretty packaging, from the products they consume. The now more aware and educated consumer, empowered by the Internet, is suspicious of sleek self-consciousness. The "review" culture of the Internet seeks a more internal, less self-conscious, and more sincere value.
As such, we must evolve the concept of personal branding to evolve with the way product branding has changed. While of course, we do still have to market ourselves as Peters instructs, there is an unmistakable atmosphere of sincerity, a demand for sincerity, that we can all bring to the table to enhance our careers.
If you think less about your "brand" and more about just being yourself, interacting with strangers, business partners, friends and acquaintances alike without specifically opportunist intentions, then you'd be surprised at how many more benefits you'll reap. This, in a nutshell, is the work of the new social economy. Let's get with the times.
