"Now seeking an appropriate position to drive best practice change strategies to achieve multi-disciplinary, blah, blah": Personal Branding IV

"I am an MSc qualified organisational change and development professional with a solid track record of facilitating Human Resource Development programmes across the Asian region."

"Now seeking an appropriate position to drive best practice change strategies to achieve multi-disciplinary goals and realise corporate aspirations."

Yes, this is a real CV, from a real guy. Apparently he's been reading too many HR guides and has put all the right keywords in the first two lines so that it gets searched by bots looking for those words. The problem? It doesn't say a damn thing. Here's how a smart recruiter would tear this apart:

"MSc qualified organisational change and development professional"

Recruiter: You have a Masters degree from a recognized institution to effect change in recognized institutions? Sure. That's like having a degree in rock and roll to make hit records. Good luck.

"with a solid track record of facilitating Human Resource Development programmes"

Recruiter: But what have you really done? You facilitated, which means helped, but have you initiated anything? Come up with any real ideas?

"Now seeking an appropriate position to drive best practice change strategies to achieve multi-disciplinary goals and realise corporate aspirations."

Now this just says absolutely nothing. Let's re-write it so it does:

"Now looking for a job using strategies everybody else has already used and approved to make everybody happy no matter where your company is headed."

Oooh, that sucks, but that's what it says. Writing a CV in plain English and being able to tell people what exactly you did to benefit past companies is probably one of the hardest things in the business world. Telling them how you will help their company in the future is probably more difficult. I work with clients helping them communicate their personal brands to companies. If your CV sounds like the one above, contact me.

Personal Branding is Not About You Saying Good Shit About You

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Peggy likes Peggy McColl - New York Times Best Selling Author & Online Marketing Expert on Facebook and suggests you like it too.

Peggy says, "Would love it if you would join my page. With gratitude, Peg".

With the best of luck, and articulate execution, Personal Branding is about other people saying good shit about you. You can help it along, but the above is no way to do that. There's nothing worse than blowing your own horn. The best Personal Branding simply sets it up for other people to blow your horn for you. A few weeks ago the Wild Wild East Dailies was picked up by the Wall Street Journal. How did I do that? And the answer is, that I don't know - but through years of writing, years of syndicating and publishing, it happened. And it happened for a reason.

The best Personal Branding simply sets things up. It doesn't push. It doesn't convert. It simply attracts - organically.

Personal Branding: You are now a product. Get used to it.

Welcome to the Internet. Welcome to Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter. Welcome to Mixx and Digg and Propeller and MySpace, Bebo, Reddit, YouTube and 1000 others? And you're a personality on every one - did you know that? Do you know that?

Every time you register for a site, you need a nickname or a screen name. Most sites give you an option for a picture, or a lot of pictures - and over time, for as many social networking sites as you might sign up for, you begin to aggregate an image or a series of images. The question over time then becomes, "But, is that a saleable image?" or in many cases "Is that an image I'd want my boss to see?" - or my mother?.

Here's a test for everyone: A while back, I did a post about a new service called Rapportive. Rapportive is a service that collects public data about "you" and then displays it to "me" - on my Gmail sidebar. Go to Rapportive.com and register. Then see how social networks report on you, and what they report. You will definitely be surprised - and maybe not in a pleasant way.

That's an effect of Personal Branding. Or a part of it anyway.

And there are many parts. Is your Screen Name the same on every site you're a member of? Is your photo the same? And is it a good photo? And on Facebook, is there a picture of you in your underwear dancing on a table somewhere? You may not want that. With personal branding, you control the images that people see, and you control the words they read as well - especially on LinkedIn. I can't tell you how many bios I see that simply list everywhere a person has worked and spend little or no time with what they actually accomplished in that position - and that I believe is a selling opportunity missed. Personal branding is being able to manage and direct ones image to be not only positive, but potentially profitable in the long run. And that's a lot more work than people think these days.

For instance: I work my Personal Branding on two fronts. There is the Product Branding I do to promote my book, Wild Wild East - and this blog is part of that. And there is my Personal Branding, in which I am the writer of that book. So, on Facebook, you see my handle as WildWildEast, because that reinforces a personal product - But on LinkedIn, I promote my own name only with little mention of Wild Wild East, except for the link to this blog. The Product Branding supports me, and my Personal Branding supports my professional work as a writer, with only a slight nod to the book. If your an accountant but also publish a knitting blog, that might be something interesting about you personally in terms of a LinkedIn link, but it's doubtful that your knitting blog will get you much accounting work. The important thing is to divide what is personal from what is professional and do that clearly - and then make good branding decisions based on the market you're reaching through the site.

And don't think your boss, can't find your Facebook page. He can.

Feel free to contact me on Personal Branding issues. From writing CVs and structuring the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook presentations, to more complex issues like how to effectively cross-manage 10 social networking sites, whatever you're doing is creating an image. Make sure it's the best it can be. You are now a brand. Get used to it.

Who am I? What am I? A stream of subconsciousness IV by those who may know - or not...

"you ARE an artist, and not a BS one, which is the best part, exactly, A BUSINESS artist", - Friend, Author/CNN regular, New York. "My take is that you are being authentic and taking charge of your own destiny ... by putting it out there and not being attached to the outcome." - friend, Marketing Director, Wisconsin. "I am no intellectual ....you are, so you keep to the blog writing LOL! - another friend, New York. "You have the most interesting adventures!" - an old friend, Illinois. "the Kinzo Air copy you wrote was very good, I have recommended you for further business", - Business associate, Berlin. "the thing that makes your blog addictive is the fact that you write (most of the time) what others think and (I am willing to bet) write them before others think them, or write them the way they would think them if they could think. " - Author, SEO professional, London. "By chance through a friend I got in touch with your YouTube presentation. I find it very different and interesting. Sometimes coincidences help to bring projects forward." - Potential Business Partner, Munich.

All interesting and positive but they bring to mind another not so positive comment recently that criticized me for selling myself, as opposed to my talents or what I do tacitly in business - and this is where many people choose to disagree. What is valuable about me or anyone? Am I personally the value in a job or relationship? Or is it a particular product I produce? Recalling the words of a headhunter back in the 80s, upon meeting me she said, "David, never send your portfolio without you being there. You are the product, you are interesting. Many people can do the work, but you, yourself are something special." And I think that many times, many people, forget that. We are our own personal products. It is said often, that aside from just being able to do brilliant work, that we must be nice to work with. We must do more than just cross the "T"s and dot the "I"s and give more than 100%. We must do that, and do it all gracefully. So that people will want to work with us again - and I'm afraid that I have not always understood that as much as I could have. Sometimes we think the product is so important, that people don't matter - when in fact, it is almost the opposite.

Anyone in business who thinks that just doing the best job is really doing the best job is missing a huge opportunity. I realized a long time ago that there were other people who could do something that I did, technically much better, but what I could bring to the party was in making that work, accessible, salable and even enjoyable. This is the one quality I have cherished most in my most successful business relationships - to have a job or a project not only reach and exceed its goals - but to also have had everyone involved feel good about that when it was time to move on to the next challenge.

Figure out that trick, and life's a dream.