A Brand Called You

I had an article published yesterday on Projects@Work on Seth Godin's latest book, Linchpin. I've been a fan of Seth Godin since he spoke at the PMI Global Congress more years ago than I want to think about. It was at the conference that I was introduced to Fast Company magazine as well.

From Fast Company's "The Brand Called You" to Linchpin, the focus has been on how you need to take charge of your future. So have you worked to refine your brand? You may be thinking that you don't need to because you work for a company and don't plan on becoming a free agent. Even if you do work at a company, you still need to think about your brand. As Godin points out, if you are just a cog, you can be replaced by a cheaper cog.

So where do you start? One good technique is to become the expert on something; be it project management, your company's products, or some technology. Then you need to get the word out that you are the expert and help people out. This is what Godin calls giving your gift.

As an example, I was one of the first people to get my PMP certification in the organization I was working in at the time. I started helping other people get a better understanding of project management. First, it was some half-hour "brown bag" sessions at lunch and eventually I put together a half day intro to project management for people in the department. This wasn't in my job description. No one asked me to do it. I did it because I was developing a passion for project management and I wanted to share it. People started to think of me as the guy who know how to run a project, and the big, high profile projects started coming my way.

So figure out how to brand yourself. What do you have to offer your organization? What problem do you want to be known for solving?

Personal Branding for Project Managers

I came across a blog post by Dan Schawbel on personal branding trends for 2010 that I found interesting. If you haven't read Dan's Personal Branding Blog, you should take a look.

The quote that stuck with me was this;

You will be judged on voice, not just your resume
Most people judge others by their resume. A resume is an account of what you’ve accomplished in the past and an attempt to show a prospective customer what you’re capable of in the future. Sorry to say that a resume won’t be powerful enough to build your brand in 2010. In addition to all that work experience and all of that credibility you’ve built up, your online conversations will be just as valuable. If you don’t blog or comment on blogs or at least update your status on social networks, then you won’t be perceived as a valuable contributor. Your opinions and thoughts is what people will want to hear in 2010 and beyond, not just previous projects that get outdated really fast.

When I was interviewing for jobs back in 2008, the company that hired me told me they looked at my on-line brand. I had gone through a series of interviews, included a day at the company. It was after they went and read my blog that they decided to make me an offer. This trend will continue to grow. How is your on-line brand?

One topic I’ve touched on when doing public speaking is personal branding. Back when I got my PMP certification, that was something that made me stand out. Now, it’s expected that any project manager will have that. What are you doing to make yourself stand above the crowd? Have you thought about other certifications such as ITIL or Six Sigma or Scrum Master? Having said that, don't chase after other certifications just to add letters to your name, go after those things you are passionate about. In my case, I've always been involved in process improvement, so Six Sigma made sense to me. However, I look at the new Scheduling Certification from PMI and have no interest in that. As an agile guy, the thought of building complex schedules is not something I care about.

So for this year, set a couple branding goals for yourself. Start a blog, get tweeting, write some articles for other blogs...something to show your passion for what you do.

Web Based Software

I was reading the June issue of Macworld on my flight back to Austin last night and it had an article about the rise of web-based programs. One program it specifically mentioned was Adobe's Photoshop Express, which I've started using. You can see some of my photos here.

I was having a discussion with someone using Rally's web-based agile project management software over the weekend. His conclusion was that while it was ok, there were some desktop features that this program didn't do as well because it was web-based. To me, the biggest limitation to web-based stuff is that you have to be connected to use most of it (though that is starting to change). For someone that does a lot of work on airplanes, this is a problem, at least until more planes start offering in-flight wi-fi. So for most things, I'll stick with my desktop application.

On a side note, I was featured in today's post on Dan Schawbel's blog, Personal Branding.