The Term Personal Brand Makes Me Want To Kick Myself In The Face.
I’m sorry. It does.
While looking through my RSS reader today I saw two articles back-to-back talking about developing a "personal brand". I can’t explain how angry that phrase makes me. A short list of reasons why I loathe "personal branding"
- It strips away our humanity and turns us into a fictional concept
- It describes something so inherently self-important and egotistical that borders on delusional
- I want to be a brand about as much as I want to be a building
- It’s a stupid buzzword created to make something obvious seem more complicated and real
Do we really need to come up with a new buzzwordish term for everything we do as human beings?
It’s not your reputation, it’s your "personal brand".
You’re not talking to friends, you’re "joining the conversation".
I didn’t just decide to eat an apple, instead "after surveying the competitive landscape, I formed a focus group of one and explored the projected ROI and KPIs of each food candidate and after reading several whitepapers and attending vendor-driven webinars selected the apple as best-of-breed"
Seriously, when did we collectively decide that we should do all we can to turn ourselves into commodities?
I thought the ideas of "social media" and "transparency" were supposed to cut through all the corporate bullshit speak and promote the informal exchange of people using a human voice. Instead, now we’re all trying to sound like the corporate voice we were complaining about in the first place.
Is it me, or are people starting to sound like press releases?
Filed under: Uncategorized
I think 99% of this can be contributed to Dan Schawbel’s Arms crossed twitter avatar. Just sayin’
Stuart, I’d be a filthy liar if I told you I had any idea what you’re talking about. Can you fill me in?
Nathan,
It helps every once-in-a-while, to be kicked back into basic reality as you noted. I feel part of the “personal branding” craze is due to those who find it difficult to state “who they are”. A much easier aspect to conquer is “what we do”.
Personal branding is a subtle attempt to make easier the identification of personal “features and benefits” if we look at ourselves as a packaged good or service. Maybe it affords a comfort zone where we project terms and descriptions that provide a buffer or distance from those dreaded “emotions and feelings”.
Because it’s not enough to say I like apples because they’re juicy and remind me of climbing the apple tree at Aunt Bee’s farm as a kid. Too trite. Low on the cerebral meter.
Instead, let’s go to extraordinary means to encompass the logic, reasoning and strategy behind the apple selection and share their complete decision-making process about the choice. This inhibits the emotional aspects that our industry thrives on while, at least on paper, provide more proof that the apple was indeed the right selection.
I agree. Personal branding runs amok. It’s kicks like yours that refresh and remind us to get back to basics.