[MUSIC] Hi everyone, welcome back. So, we've reviewed brand and personal brand and sort of the idea of the unique you brand, we've talked about Peter's idea, personal brand and how it really, if you think about it it comes right on the cusp of wide spread personal computing, creation of personal environments, right and the everyday use of the Internet. So that's an important piece, so because I think we can then imagine a personal brand in both the face to face everyday sort of world and also the virtual worlds which by the way makes management of that brand then which will be the topic of the subsequent lesson, a little bit trickier 'cause we're sort of navigating those two environments. So, what is the act of personal branding, what does it actually mean. In essence, it's about telling your story, but the story is clear and is supported with evidence that suggests your unique value proposition. And the potential contributions that you make, and the evidence that you can find and really present the difference that differentiates you from potential competitors which is important, of course, for a career. So, Montoya thought about this a lot, a researcher really was thinking about what personal branding is, and he explains it as a personal identity that sort of stimulates precise, meaningful perceptions in an audience about the values and qualities that a person stands for. And the branding needs to be identified and to be defined, it needs to be shaped and protected. But how? So, by practicing the processes by which you identify and express, your unique bundle of skills, your abilities, your experiences, your temperament, your talents, your values, your personality attributes, your credentials, your strengths, and so forth. You can start to collect artifacts that really speak to each of these categories. And you can use the T-Portfolio to collect the artifacts, to organize them, and then you can start to integrate some of the assessments into that assessment grid in your CDL workout. So, keep that in mind as tools that you can use to organize your thinking. And remember, too, you want to use your branding processes to create a brand that moves from perception to the creation of opportunities, and that last part is extremely important for your career. Because above all you want your personal brand and your branding activities to create opportunities for you in your career. How can you find new opportunities, how can you, perhaps develop on a career you already have, and so forth? And again, this also connects to opportunity. How does your branding process differentiate you from your competitors? How can you work to ensure that your branding remains current and has unique impact? Remember, we talked about personal branding being everywhere in the literature, that means, kind of, everyone is doing it, too. So, think about how your branding is really unique unto you and separates you from the herd, as it were. So, approaches to personal branding can vary, and here's one. Montana and Wilson suggest that there are sort of 8 laws of personal branding, and that the branding processes and evidence should speak to a couple of things. So, I'm going to name them here just quickly. For example, specialization. What are your unique talents? Your unique credentials, your unique experiences. What about leadership? Have you led projects? Have you created team based communication strategies? Can you name them? How about your personality? How does social media capture your personality? Do you have a LinkedIn profile and what does it say about you or do you have other public facing profiles? How do they really reflect who you are? What's distinctive about you? Is the evidence that you're providing distinctive unto you or are you using, for example, a cookie cutter standard resume template, which really we want to avoid doing that. How about visibility? Can people find you? Do you have a strong social media presence? Have you published a blog? Have you written for a professional trade publication? Are you a known expert in a field? And can people who are looking to fill particular positions. Can they find you out there? And then, there's the idea of unity. Is there some cohesion to your artifacts? Is there alignment between your social media presence, your public appearance? The artifacts that you present to the world and so forth. And then, there's the idea of persistence. Do you have references that speak to your good work ethic, your ability to work independently, to be a self starter? Some of you are familiar with LinkedIn, there are those endorsements on there. What do those endorsements say about you? And then, there's the idea of goodwill, this also goes back to the idea of endorsements, can colleagues endorse your ability, for example, to work as a part of a team or to think independently and be collaborative at the same time. Those references really help and they really go a long way toward helping you develop a personal brand. But personal branding is less about self promotion and more about building confidence to operate or perform in your area of expertise or to project confidence that you have the abilities and competencies to stretch into a new area. We'll discuss this idea a little bit more in the lesson about performance. Lastly, again and this is probably intuitive but it's worth mentioning, personal branding is goal oriented, and this is a key piece since the goal, that goal will help shape your own branding activities. So, for your purposes, your goal is likely to find a new job or start a new career, or maybe even explore options at your current place of employment and so forth. So that goal would drive your personal branding piece. So, we've learned a little bit about personal brand and the potential components of the process of personal branding. So next, we're going to talk about how to manage your brand, and how to manage the impressions that others might have about that brand. See you soon.
