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On Being the Brand

June 14th, 2009
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Social Media Today had a recent post called Are you promoting the company’s brand or your personal brand? The post notes that some of us share our identity with the company that we work for:

This is the delicate balance that exists for those of us representing our companies thru social media. Since conversation is king, those who are great at engaging in dialog both online and offline will likely become the voice of their company whether intentionally or by accident.

We become part of “the brand”–the marketing and communications efforts that help distinguish our company from the rest of the marketplace. In a sense, we become our work and our work takes on life through us. This is interesting because people don’t always have good filters to separate their personal “self” from their work persona (or lack the ability to be professional enough to represent their company).

picture of Neenz

I asked my friend Neenz Feleafine for her thoughts on this. Neenz uses social media tools like Twitter and Facebook for her professional life.

JC: Do you think people ever find this confusing–as if you were being a commercial?

NF: A few years ago when I first began participating in social networking sites it was out of curiosity. Today, it’s purely for business. I use social media tools to build my network, but I engage in relationships through other more intimate forms of communication: emails, VoIP, IM, telephone calls and most importantly real life meetings to maintain my network.

One of the greatest things–although making friends was never a goal for my use of social networks or social media tools–I have discovered very good people, and am developing not only solid business relationships, but lifetime friendships.

JC: Do people ever confuse you and your personal network with the companies that you promote? I mean do people think that Alltop is involved with some of your personal interests?

NF: My role with Alltop is Chief Evangelist which means that I am to spread the good news of Alltop without ceasing. And, it’s my honor to do so. I have been blessed with a much coveted opportunity to work with Guy Kawasaki–learning and growing, loyalty and perseverance, and grinding it out are my personal interests.

I have also recently launched my social media marketing startup, Pono Media–as an entrepreneur there isn’t much else to be interested in except for its success.

I am fortunate to have the unconditional love and support of Lilinoe, Chelsea, and Jayden for me to invest so much of my time in Alltop and Pono Media.

JC: What are your thoughts on managing your digital self in mixed purposes?

NF: More than 95% of my network met me as “Alltop’s Chief Evangelist”. Only in the recent months have my classmates, friends, and family members taken an active interest in Facebook. And, I have exactly 2 friends that I knew since childhood whom have joined Twitter, but very rarely participate.

Coaching moment: Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, and LinkedIn often work to blur the distinction between our personal and professional lives. It’s not enough to compartmentalize yourself with the confines of a specific service. For example, your personal (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) life can–and sometimes does–crash into your professional life (e.g., LinkedIn, or a potential job interviewer Googling you before your interview). Your Twitter stream (sometimes referred to as a form of “life streaming”) likely contains conversations about all parts of your life.

Many social media experts consider this a good thing, as you are your own “brand.” For example, see Chris Brogan’s It’s All About You post, or notes from Roxanne Darling’s Your Personal Brand is an Opportunity for Freedom talk.

Whether you are online to represent your inner personal self and/or companies that you do business with, it’s worth noting that services and people on the Internet are archiving everything, and they have no particular reason to keep everything in context. Until tools are developed to help us manage our conversations, transactions, and relationships, we’ll need to be mindful of who we really are.

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Becoming Personal

May 13th, 2009
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photo-mojo This whole “social media” thing has a lot of people worried. In the first place, there are so many tools. In the second place, we’re not in control of our data. That is, we can add, others can see, but further use and ultimate deletion is in the service provider’s hands, not ours. Third, we might say something that can be used against us in the future, and how would we know what that might be? There’s so much uncertainty in using these tools.

Facebook is one very popular example of a social media site. Once you have an account, you can publish information about yourself and share it with your friends–and others. The Harvard Business blog had an interesting piece called What Does Your Facebook Profile Say About You? The author had this to say:

Why does it make sense to reveal our personal selves to social media sites? It may be that boundary breakers posting a mix of personal and professional information online are making a connection between what they share of themselves and their effectiveness as managers. Sharing personal information further humanizes people whose roles may otherwise make them seem remote or inaccessible. This effect extends beyond senior managers to peer relationships deeper in the organization. Seeing a more rounded person can’t help but extend and develop professional relationships, furthering the trust that’s crucial to collaborative knowledge creation–the lifeblood of innovation.

There’s a more general point here: we’re moving from a world of stocks to flows, one in which to grow and develop, collectively and individually, we need to constantly refresh our stocks of knowledge by participating in relevant flows of new knowledge. Flows require reciprocity: why would you exchange a flow of knowledge without trusting me to do the same? Yet trust is difficult to build and maintain if we keep a significant part of ourselves hidden.

Coaching moment: We are who we say we are. That’s called being authoritative about our data. When people look at our profile, it’s safe to assume that we’re telling the truth about who, what, where, when and why that is on our wall or in our record. Given that you don’t have ultimate control over this, it makes sense to be careful about what you record about yourself. You might intend it to be shared with friends, but unless you have more control than you do on Facebook, your information can be accessed by everyone, forever.

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TechFest: Stuff you didn’t know you need (2004)

March 5th, 2004
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Seems Microsoft is dreaming about being in your pockets and around your neck, among other places. As if they’re not already? But MS means in a new and different way.

SenseCam, touted as a visual diary of sorts, is designed to be worn around the neck and can take up to 2,000 images in a 12-hour day without the wearer doing a thing. …

Some technology on display at TechFest could soon be available to the public. For example, Microsoft is looking to license technology for identification cards touted as “unforgeable” because they combine a regular picture ID with another, multicolored box that includes a compressed facial image. A card reader makes sure both the regular picture and the multicolored box match before granting access, meaning people couldn’t just simply swap out the photograph on an ID card.

Another project, developed by Microsoft Research’s Beijing office, converts a regular facial image into a low-resolution, cartoonish image. That animation can then be used with instant messaging, to convey whether the person typing a message is laughing, frowning or nodding. It could help solve the problem of understanding the nuance of people’s typed conversations, without requiring the computer and telecommunications power needed to use a Web cam.

Coaching moment: Sometimes it’s helpful to see (or hear) ourselves as others do. A recording of everything we do and say can be very revealing. However, I doubt that anyone wants to play back every moment of a day. We have “downtime” when we’re not at our best. Those may not be the best moments to share, even though they are part of who we are.

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