Personal Branding and Carnival

I finished my presentation on Personal Branding using technology, which was fun but somewhat exausting. Hey, for a big guy like me who is usually pounding away on my keyboard (read: lazy, out of shape), getting up and presenting for 90 minutes (with intense discussion) was a little tough 😉

I was slow to get to this post, and Rob beat me to it. I really appreciate his follow-up thoughts not really on anything I said but on stuff that the presentation made him think about.

I hope to get this uploaded to a video place in the next few days, probably in pieces so it isn’t one big 90min presentation. I won’t belabor it here, and will save some stuff from the presentation for a few other posts. Here are some thoughts on the carnival.

The response that I’ve gotten on the carnival has been awesome. I sent out some e-mails to people that I personally wanted to hear from and have already gotten some of their write-ups. I am ASTOUNDED at the thought that went into these write-ups – the advice is excellent.

There is one very thoughtful and creative recruiter in Georgia that sent me his piece (he’ll post it later, and I’ll link to it on the 6th) that was awesome. I got what I consider two “celebrity” folks to submit their responses, which I’ll also post later (ah, the suspense is killing me even though I’ve already read what they wrote! ;)). I have had one passive job seeker (a guy that has a job but realizes that you are never safe from that proverbial pink slip) send me an excellent piece he wrote…, another from an author of a book, etc. I know others are coming.

I will share one with you right now, just because it is from someone that I wasn’t crossing my fingers on. Phil Windley actually gets part of the blame for my blogging addiction, as he was on the panel of the conference about blogging where I decided to jump on the bandwagon. He has been an inspiration to me as someone who has developed his own personal brand (which he talks about in this post). I consider him to be a very successful professional, and even had a slide covering his site in my presentation today. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had responded to my carnival today, and encourage you to read his post.

Remember, he is answering this question:

Yikes! You just lost your job! You’ve been so busy at *work* that you don’t feel your network is as strong as you would like it to be! What are you going to do with (and to) your network in the next 6 weeks as you begin an aggresive job search campaign? And, outside of your network, what job search tactics will you employ? Or your best networking tips related to job searches.

Anyone can jump into this carnival, just e-mail me your permalink by the 5th or 6th of November, as on the 6th I will post all links that I know about. I guarantee this will be a thought-provoking experience. All input that I’ve recieved thus far has some common themes but also there are great outside-the-box ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of!