“Recession-Proof” your Career
The good folks over at The Personal Branding Blog have been writing a series of tips on recession proofing your career through your personal brand. While they are titled from the point of view of personal branding, I’ve found most of the tips to have broad applicability and just make sense.
The tips, currently at 10, are written to be a very quick read, just a couple paragraphs. They make a lot of sense and have got me thinking a bit more in depth on most of them. So with full credit given to the team over at The Personal Branding Blog, I’d like to add my two cents worth to the discussion. I’m not sure anyone can really make your career truly recession proof, but the spirit of these tips is to focus back on key activities that can play a big part in making sure you are on the “A” list when hard decisions come in your company.
It would be great to make this a collaborative effort, so if you have a thought on one of the tips please add a comment. My thoughts follow the break.
Related posts
DCO Weekly Reader - 10/3/08
The web is a vast repository of opinions, commentary and occasionally, wisdom. Here’s a selection of the best articles I read over the past week.
If you would like to recommend an article, blog or book, please leave a comment with your suggestion. Weekend Reader is a regular feature here at DCO, and you can read past Weekend Readers here.
It turned out to be a challenging week emotionally. While I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in my personal situation, it is still a day-to-day part of my life. Then on Wednesday, very suddenly, a friend and business colleague dies.
I went out by myself Wednesday night to have a nice meal to commemorate his passing (he was a bit of a gourmand). I came home and turned on the television just to pass some time. Without even changing the channel, what comes up but Forrest Gump. If you’ve seen the movie you know it’s a simple yet powerful message of living in the moment and what to make of this thing called life.
Forrest was portrayed in the movie as mentally challenged; yet his observations and actions lead to an extraordinary life. Toward the end of the movie, Forrest is mourning the loss of his life-long love. I don’t remember the words exactly, but they went something like:
“My mama always said we each had a destiny, but Lieutenant Dan said life is nothing but a feather floating on the wind. I just wonder if it’s both.”
Personal Excellence & Leadership
- Seven ways inspiring leaders communicate.
- Great list of activities indicating you’ve stopped leading. I’m confident no one reading DCO is in that situation, but it never hurts to check…
- As quoted in the intro to this next post, Warren Bennis proposes that one thing that separates leaders is they somehow get more out of their experiences. The post goes on to talk about several ways to accomplish that.
- Okay, maybe you don’t need to get more out of your experiences, maybe you just need to be more curious. Here’s how to do that.
Thought-Provokers
- Do you know what a BFO is? I didn’t either.
- Here’s an idea whose time is overdue in my opinion: is the world ready to be small again?
- A thoughtful article on what is “meaning” in the context of leadership and how to create a culture of meaning in your organization.
For Fun
- Ask your kids, but fun, flash-based web games are taking over the internet. Here’s four logic-oriented examples to give your brain a workout.
Tips & Tricks
- Some simple tips on communicating your personal brand. Even if you think this whole “personal branding” thing isn’t for you, these are some good tips to consider.
- It happens to all of us; I just went through it this summer. A new boss. Here’s 10 great tips for getting off on the right foot.
Related posts
DCO Weekend Reader - 9/26/08
The web is a vast repository of opinions, commentary and occasionally, wisdom. Here’s a selection of the best articles I read over the past week.
If you would like to recommend an article, blog or book, please leave a comment with your suggestion. Weekend Reader is a regular feature here at DCO, and you can read past Weekend Readers here.
Wow - a great week with some really outstanding articles. The last couple of weeks I’ve kind of felt like the Weekly Readers weren’t as strong as some in the past, but this week it is really hard to say which of the following articles you shouldn’t read. They are all great, so I’ve included a bit more overview than I usually do so you can pick out the ones of most interest and value.
Personal Excellence & Leadership
- If you are a President or CEO, you have a real challenge building and leading a highly performing team. This may sound counter-intuitive, but this post on roadblocks for top level teams does a good job of laying out unique challenges to teams at this level. I find this an especially fascinating little post as the original text was provided by an executive coach and it’s no surprise that executive coaching is provided as a leading solution to the problems cited. Then the blog’s author cuts in to not only challenge that statement, but offer his own divergent observations. Taken in total it’s a fairly balanced article. If you are part of or in charge of a top level team, at the very least there is value in this post for identifying roadblocks you might be hitting keeping you from realizing your collective potential.
- Continuing our discussion of personal branding, The Chief Brand Officer answers the question “so what” with the challenge: if I Googled your name, what would I find?
- Compare yourself to the two lists in this short post. Do you create or break trust?
- The winner for the week - a performance and potential matrix with nine leadership development strategies. If this is on your agenda, this is a must read.
- I love George Ambler (in a completely professional, non-stalker, kind of way). Very close runner-up for winner of the week is his post on how leaders build trust. Your second must read.
Thought-Provokers
- Don’t let virtual networking get in the way of personal contact. Hopefully none of you need to click that link. For those of you that need a refresher, a quick read reinforcing an important point in today’s world.
- Why knowledge isn’t enough. What do you think the secret ingredient is?
- Finally, some real-world thinking on making a decision. This time in the context of career management. Too much I read and hear these days, especially from speakers and book writers, is all about passion with no respect for risk and pragmatism.
For Fun
For fun this week, I just want to highlight a new company that is in online beta right now. The company is Akoha (www.akoha.com) and they call themselves the world’s first “social reality game”. Akoha is a fascinating concept combining online community building with “deliberate acts of kindness” in the real world. As I said, the website and company are currently in closed beta testing, but you can get an overview of how it works, here. I submitted to become part of the beta and you can bet I’ll give you some writeups on it if I am chosen. For the time being I applaud the concept and I can’t wait to see how the company rolls out and I’m also very interested in seeing their monetization model.
Books
- Cute? Perhaps. Trite? Maybe. But this little book on meeting openers, icebreakers and energizing activities might be just what you were looking for.
Tips & Tricks
- Do you attend conferences and luncheons from time to time? Do you feel like you are maximizing your networking at those events? Here are some great, practical, human-centered tips for iniatiting and maximizing your networking at those events.
- Some quick, basic things you can do to get started communicating your personal brand.
- Must have been the week everyone was attending conferences. Here’s a nice list of things to do to get the most out of your conference dollars.
Related posts
A Personal Branding primer
I’ve mentioned the topic of Personal Branding a few times before, but a recent post (along with a free download) on Chris Brogan’s blog got me inspired to write a primer describing my views of this concept. I’ve been hearing the term more and more, maybe you have too, so I’ve been not only giving it some thought, but reading with interest the posts I can find on the topic.
In this post I’d like to share my thoughts on the two dichotomies of personal branding, offer an overview of what a personal brand is and how to create one, and offer some simple tips on getting started supporting your personal brand.
This is an evolving concept that I don’t think is fully fleshed out in anybody’s minds. Therefore while I do believe this will be an informative, even helpful article for most of you, please remember that the topic of personal branding is a relatively new one so if it is a topic of importance for you, please do not rely solely on this article to form a course of action.
You may also notice that I have this post filed under the Leadership category. Not so much a something you do to lead, but rather something that leaders should consider doing. Likewise, even if you are not an strategic leader in your company, personal branding may still have relevance in your personal leadership development strategy.
As I have written this article, it has become apparent that there are more elements to even a primer on personal branding than can realistically be covered in one article. Therefore, I think this will turn into a four part series. Stay tuned for upcoming additions to this topic. Also be warned this is a fairly lengthy article.
Related posts
DCO Weekend Reader - 8/29/08
The web is a vast repository of opinions, commentary and occasionally, wisdom. Here’s a selection of the best articles I read over the past week.
If you would like to recommend an article, blog or book, please leave a comment with your suggestion. Weekend Reader is a regular feature here at DCO, and you can read past Weekend Readers here.
For you E-mail readers of DCO, I changed the timing of when updates get sent out. You may have noticed you only get one E-Mail and it gets sent early afternoon-ish (EST). I changed this to be earlier in the day, so you should receive it late morning now. This was mainly to get the “weekend” reader into your hands early enough so you could actually have it for the weekend.
It’s hard to believe Labor Day is upon us already, but Monday is the holiday. Summer sure went quick this year. Is it getting older that makes the years go by so quickly, or do we just get busier as adults and let things pass us by easier?
Regardless, have a great holiday weekend. Do a favor for me and let someone special know how much they mean to you.
Personal Excellence & Leadership
- Is creating your own personal mission statement on your agenda? Not sure how to get started. Following the link to a summary of three separate articles addressing the topic.
- Creating a sense of urgency is an important skill for many of us. However, that doesn’t mean you want your organization running around frantically in unorchestrated chaos. Here’s a good introduction to something called “urgent patience”.
- In my opinion the best leadership blog I’ve come across yet, George Ambler’s The Practice of Leadership never disappoints. It seems like every post is a candidate for the Weekend Reader. His most recent is no exception, writing about the 4 key components of a personal leadership vision.
Thought-Provokers
- Looking for a universal metric by which to measure yourself, your life or your work?
For Fun
- If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time online, both for work and for play. This quick post outlines 14 simple ways to boost your online productivity. All the tips are very simple, but make a lot of sense. There should be something for just about everyone in there.
- SlideShare is an online site that allows you to upload presentations and share them via a blog, website, or allow them to be downloaded. I tested this out with a recent post embedding a presentation on Positive Attitude. If you’re looking for a simple way to share and/or embed presentations in your site, check out this SlideShare demo.
Books
- The book Leading with Kindness covers the topic of respect and it’s relationship to honesty. With an overview that links dishonesty to disrespect and ultimately to hatred of self, what would appear at first as a rather pollyanna topic, ends up with the potential to greatly impact your organization, and yourself.
Tips & Tricks
- Why is an online presence important to your career? Here’s a short article with some answers to that question and some suggestions for getting started if you haven’t already.
Related posts
DCO Weekend Reader - 8/22/08
The web is a vast repository of opinions, commentary and occasionally, wisdom. Here’s a selection of the best articles I read over the past week.
If you would like to recommend an article, blog or book, please leave a comment with your suggestion. Weekend Reader is a regular feature here at DCO, and you can read past Weekend Readers here.
Last week I promised to try to limit the number of links this week, and sadly I just wasn’t able to live up to that promise. Whereas I initially thought this feature might not even be weekly, it now appears not only will it stay weekly, but it will be chock-full of great posts and links. To help you decide which links are most appropriate for you, I’ll expand my descriptions of posts that might not be self-explanatory, to help guide your weekend reading.
This week I’m also adding a new section to the Weekend Reader: Tips & Tricks. I read a post that simply had to be mentioned and it really didn’t fit any of the four categories, so I just created a new one.
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but the weather here couldn’t be more pleasant. Late Summer / Early Fall weather gives us sunny days in the low 80’s and cool clear nights perfect for opening the windows. Have a great weekend - take a hike!
Personal Excellence & Leadership
- Courage has been discussed on this blog as a possible “essential” quality of entrepreneurship. This post examines what happens when you have to little or too much of it.
- Are your corporate (or for that matter personal) metrics not in line with your goals? If you hit your metrics can you still miss your goals?
- Some insightful comments on why leadership development might be such a popular topic these days in business.
- Positive Leadership (also a book).
- On staying committed… Warning #1 - some “salty” language. Warning #2 - may be extremely motivating.
- Are you the leader of an organization that needs a better sense of urgency? Could you use more urgency around your personal goals. Here is a good article outlining the difference between true urgency and false urgency, along with four tactics to create a true sense of urgency.
Thought-Provokers
- What beliefs support your Leadership philosophy? I’d love to see some thoughts from all of you in comments.
- Sitck with this one. It ends better than it starts.
For Fun
- This is fun and might even be useful! Screen2 lets you share your web browser with a friend or colleague. Nothing to install, safe and secure.
Books
- How to be useful: A beginner’s guid to not hating work. I’m glad to see themes like being nice and using common sense so prevalent in today’s leadership commentaries. This new book shows “how to restore courtesy in your work and your organization, and move up in the world while doing so.” It may sound a bit trite, but based on the extended overview of the book, this one may get added to my reading list.
Tips & Tricks
- The concept of one’s “personal brand” is one that I’m seeing more and more articles about. If this is an issue that is important to you, then you may be interested in this article on tracking your online brand. It’s not just as simple as “googling” your name once a month, and the author offers some tips on monitoring not only news, but blogs, forums, discussion boards and twitter.
