yesterday in the office, we spent some time talking with staff and doing a training on managing their personal online reputations. there's a lot of good stuff out there on the web already on how to do this including this and this and this. AdWeek also ran a good column recently on how starting a blog could save your career, which fits in nicely with the theme of managing your online reputation. of the ten reasons listed for why a blog is good for your career, i liked the following:
[ 4. You'll establish yourself, prove yourself and position yourself
within the community.
5. You may become a titan. Take David Armano, for example. His
blog, Logic + Emotion, is a must read. Before, he was a nobody (to
me, that is). Perhaps crayon will be able to afford him one
day...
6. You could become the go-to resource for all things new, emerging
and/or mystifying. ]
you could say that with me starting up my own blog independent of Fistful of Talent that i'm working on building my reputation or brand... sure. it's a little weird to think about myself as a brand though - i just want an outlet for my thoughts and to be part of a community. my reputation or brand, i hope, is based on the work i do and the results i create. but all this talk of personal brands got me thinking... it's easier now more than ever to create an identity/persona/brand because of the online space. really - you too can become a thought leader! all you have to do is think, and write, and put it out there, build relationships, network, and... voila. you will have created some big online footprints and a presence to boost your brand. but what if what you create isn't real or there isn't much depth behind it? what if you're all talk and you don't have the goods to back it up? and then what happens when reality comes crashing into what you've created for your online persona? does that make sense? i hope with where i'm going, i'm not getting onto a soapbox with this one... i feel a rant coming on though.
it struck me recently when someone asked me how things were going with Fistful of Talent... could that turn into a full-time gig? would i want to get involved in further evangelizing for HR/recruiting in the online world/social media and abandon what i do during the day? they were harmless enough questions, but my reaction was slightly visceral. i'm a practitioner, i blurted out. for the time being, i have no desire to stop "doing" HR and recruiting and just talk about it... what kind of credibility would i have if i weren't in the trenches and just wrote/talked about it? i don't want to be too out of touch by not doing and practicing what i write about. it could also an age thing - i'm eight years into the game but still feel like i have lots to learn and want to be fully immersed in it all. plus, i'm still very new to the recruiting/HR blog + social media scene. i'm super proud of what we're doing on the other bloggy and invested in really making that a top-shelf brand... but i feel like we're just scratching the surface of that and it's much too early to bank on my success as a so-called thought leader there and with that alone. but the truth of the matter is, there are "thought leaders" out there who aren't or haven't ever done much "doing" and just do a lot of talking instead... and i just don't get how they've become big or why others have so much love for them. are our expectations that low?
i think it's time we all start expecting more.
HR and recruiting isn't rocket science, i know this. you don't have to be a genius who is doing it daily to talk about it - a lot of it is common sense and good instincts, actually. but i don't want to ever preach, and advise, and recommend when i'm not doing it anymore. maybe when i'm old and gray, i can preach without practicing... but for now, i'm going to keep doing, and being. and i think you should expect this from your recruiting and HR thought leaders too.
******
a post-script... some
interesting stuff that i came across after writing this little bitty but before publishing it...
there's a good dialogue happening on choosing your recruiting idols
wisely, the rise of recruiting celebrities, and it took me three-times
to read and get-it, but how speaking in tongues relates to the recruiting
blogosphere... refreshing thoughts in those three posts. it makes me think that perhaps i'm not totally nuts when i say i don't get why some folks out there have become so popular in the blogosphere. maybe not everyone's expectations are so low...