Dealing with the creepiness of personal branding

I do a lot of executive coaching and one of the big discussion topics is accepting the creepiness of personal branding — the fact that talking about yourself in public is part of business life these days. In fact, this topic leads to an entire existential discussion about sharing, over-sharing, privacy, and “it’s nobody’s damn business!”

If you’ve followed me for a while, you probably know that I think developing a personal brand is important. It’s the only sustainable competitive advantage we have as professionals. It opens the doors of opportunity!

But beyond the individual, encouraging the people around you in your company to make a mindful effort in this direction is important because increasingly, the personal brand IS the brand!

I feel so strongly about this that I believe marketing departments should devote at least part of their resources to supporting executive branding.

But this does not address the central issue of today. It can still feel creepy to put your self out there.

Putting creepy in perspective

I recently responded to a LinkedIn post from Ashley Sumner, the founder of the Quilt social network.

Ashley is doing a great job presenting her personality to the world. One of her…