Page 361 - Using MIS

Be aware, however, that maintaining a professional start building your personal brand. Again, be sure your ef-
brand can become all consuming. Just like personal forts focus on creating authentic relationships and not on
Facebook use can suck up most of your free time, so, too, shameless advertising.
can maintaining your professional brand. To help avoid this Realize, too, that a strong personal brand is essential to
situation, start modestly and work up from there. some careers. For example, if you want to be an independent
When engaging in personal branding efforts, always consultant, say an expert on privacy and control for cloud
be guided by your personal strategy. Consider Figure 3-12 data storage, you’ll need to invest considerable time develop-
again, in light of your personal competitive strategy. What ing and maintaining your professional brand. But whether or
is your personal competitive advantage? Why would some- not it’s essential, having a strong personal brand is an asset
one choose you, your expertise, or your work products over in any field, in any job. And you can be sure that if you don’t
others? Then, with answers to these questions in mind, have a good personal brand, one of your competitors will.

DisCussion Questions

1. Using your own words, define and describe a personal 4. Suppose you become an expert in the topic you used
brand. in your answer to question 3. Think about your experi-
2. Describe how you could use social media to make an ences in the past year that relate to that topic. It could be
existing professional contact more personal in nature experiences in class, out of class with fellow students, or
while still maintaining your privacy. in conversations with roommates. It could be something
3. Pick a contemporary topic of interest in your major field that happened at your job at McDonald’s. Whatever.
of study. For example, if you’re an operations major, pick a. Make a list of 10 such experiences.
something like 3D printing. If you’re an accounting ma- b. Describe how you could use social media, including
jor, choose something like auditing in the cloud. (Read blogs, to present five of the best of those 10 experi-
question 4, however, before you pick.) ences in a way that helps build your professional
a. Search the Web for opinions about the realities, con- brand.
temporary uses, big issues and problems, or other 5. Reflect on your answers to questions 1–4.
interesting dimensions of your topic. a. Do you think having a personal brand is important
b. Find two or three experts in that topic, and go to their for you? Explain why or why not. (The answer to this
professional brand sites. That brand might be a blog, question may not be yes, and for good reasons.)
a Web page, a collection of articles, an SM site on b. What was the most difficult task for you when formu-
Facebook or LinkedIn, or some other public state- lating your answers to question 4?
ment of their professionalism. c. Summarize what you have learned from this exercise
c. Which of the sites is the best? Explain why you about how you might get more value from your col-
think so. lege experiences.

329