A bit of history about this You Get It Personal Branding Award. I started this in September, 2006. This is my 18th month doing it, where I recognize professionals who are using online technologies to “portray their personal brand.”
What does that mean? I am looking for people who are doing an excellent job showing me (as a hiring manager or recruiter, partner, customer, vendor, employee, etc.) what their professional breadth and depth is, and what their passions and opinions are.
If I end up with your resume, and it sits on my desk with four others, they are all probably going to look pretty much the same (to some degree). I’ll know you are all smart, achievers, volunteers, accomplished, etc. By this point in my process, all five resumes look like commodities (or, they make you look like a commodity). If I can go to your professional blog (not your personal/cheerio blog) and get to know your breadth, depth, passions, etc., I’m going to get sucked in. Are you smart? Do you think about things in a way that will add value to my company? Are you abrasive? Have you build a following, or are you becoming a thought-leader/SME in the space? All of these things are going to come out better in your blog than in an interview or a resume (not a replacement, but a strong complement).
At the bottom of this post you can see the others that I have awarded over the last 1.5 years. It’s been an exciting run, and I know the award winners have benefited from their excellent online presence. Now, let’s get to John Halamka!
I came across John Halamka’s blog from a simple Google search. I think I was looking for CIO blogger, or something like that. John’s blog stood out, significantly, beyond the others that came up. Here’s what I like:
- His content is king for the reader. John’s content is amazing, it’s so right-on. If I was an IT person in the healthcare space this would be required reading. If I were a CIO (or an aspiring CIO) this would be required reading. He’s really able to hit both the industry and the profession in a way that doesn’t exclude one another.
- The content is great for Google. I’m not sure John did this on purpose, but his posts have enough industry/profession specific terminology (aka, jargon) that he should come up for a number of terms that other IT, CIO or executives should be searching for. His vendors will probably come up in top search results based on his blog. I tell people to make sure their LinkedIn profile has all the right jargon to come up in searches – John’s blog is an excellent example of this.
- The blog is clean. This is very uncluttered, leaving the content for the readers. I applaud John for not putting all kinds of widgetry on his blog, which usually does nothing but distract the reader.
- The URL is good (enough). I am a big fan of getting your own URL, but I’d say his is fine. “Geek Doctor”… has a ring to it. And it is descriptive. I have to admit, I do like the main header on his blog: Life as a Healthcare CIO, instead of putting GeekDoctor there, also.
- I LOVE the header and personal descriptions. They are well-written, informative, and authoritative. Very good job.
That’s it! I don’t want to overwhelm you, and make you think that YOU can’t do this. Like John, YOU are a Subject Matter Expert in your space, aren’t you? You can do this!Let me share just a few things that I’d recommend John do. Even if he doesn’t do this (I’m sure he’s busy, as the CIO and all that ;)) he’ll still have a great blog. But here’s what I suggest:
- Get off of blogger. I wouldn’t recommend blogger to anyone, at least John chose the white background (instead of the gray one). The main reason to get off of blogger is because they could delete his blog. I favor getting the blog software from wordpress.org and putting it on your own server – then you get all the control you want.
- Add to the blogroll. John is not the only CIO blogger out there. He can really extend his virtual relationships to other healthcare professionals, and other CxO’s if he were to look for and link to some of them. Not sure if that’s a goal, but hey, it never hurts to strengthen your online brand and network, right?
John Halamka, congratulations! You join a special group of professionals and have earned a coveted link from my monthly winner’s blogroll area (on the left), six months of premium JibberJobber (you can transfer/award this to someone else 
), and a cyber-high five! And, a new addition to the prize list is the 90 minute recording of Blog Marketing 201 – 501 (part of the CEO Training for Me, Inc. – listed at $49.95 (but much more valuable than that!).
Feel free to post the You Get It award on your site!
Here are the past winners:
- September 2006 – ClickDave – my review
- October 2006 – Kent Blumberg – my review
- November 2006 – Heather Henricks – my review
- December 2006 – Adelino de Almeida – my review
- January 2007 – Rob Humphrey – my review
- January 2007 – Ariel Meadow Stallings – my review
- February 2007 – Mike Schaffner – my review
- March 2007 – Susan Johnston – my review
- April 2007 – Thomas Clifford – my review
- May 2007 – Rob Frankel – my review
- June 2007 – Trent Hamm – my review
- July 2007 – Katie Konrath – my review
- August 2007 – Robb Hecht – my review
- September 2007 – OOPS! I took this month off and didn’t realize it! Lucky me
- October 2007 – Tanya Ferrill – my review
- November 2007 – Sean O’Donnovan – my review
- December 2007 – Andy Shaindlin – my review
- January 2008 – Kate Herrick – my review
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