Employees/Individuals

Don’t Let Personal Branding Stifle your Authentic Voice

June 9, 2009

Tweet There is a battle brewing between the concepts of Personal Brand and Authentic Voice. If you’ve been paying attention at all (and I’m sure you have) you’ve seen the articles and the individuals touting personal branding. Everyone from Tom Peters to Seth Godin to Dan Scwabel is online telling you how to create your […]

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When Employee Branding Hurts

June 8, 2009

Tweet Employee Branding, done well, can be a great tool for the organization. The organization gets employees to behave in ways that are aligned with the organization’s desired brand message, and employees get a sense of connection to the brand and what it stands for, as well as a little bit of empowerment for making […]

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What’s your *personal* ROI as a Brandividual?

June 3, 2009

Tweet I’m not a wholehearted fan of personal branding. Some elements of applying a construct designed to sell products to the activity of selling oneself are a little questionable (as I argue in my Employee Branding research),  because personal branding can lead to an overly commercial understanding of the self. Quite simply, personal branding can […]

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Brandividual In Action: Follow @cbarger to watch General Motors transform

June 2, 2009

Tweet Here’s your chance to see someone in the brandividual role taking action, over time, in the face of a big challenge. When I gave my talk about The Rise of Brandividuals at last week’s Corporate Reputation Conference, I used the example (well-known in social media circles) of @scottmonty of Ford Motor Company to illustrate […]

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What’s a Brandividual?

May 20, 2009

Tweet When I read that David Armano had “invented” the term “Brandividual” a few months ago, I muttered choice words from an array of Continental languages and berated myself for not having TM’d the word myself. Back when I started researching the practices of employee branding and ‘wearing the brand’, I’d toyed with the idea […]

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Authentic Playlist at Misogyny Free Prom

May 15, 2009

Tweet A shout out to my girlfriends at Bust magazine, home of the GirlWideWeb and all things hip & 3rd wave feminist . They share the news today of an advocacy movement by The Women’s Health and Issues Club of the high school in Arcadia CA, which has resulted in a prom music playlist that […]

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Black Men & the Glass Elevator: Research to Remember

May 13, 2009

Tweet Often, when managers consider how men and women fare differently in the work of paid work, they make simple distinctions between the genders: Women are like this , men are like that . Then, they extrapolate from this simple distinction how a person’s gender will shape her or his career success. Racism & Sexism […]

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Working Moms Go Viral

May 7, 2009

Tweet … And I’m not talking about Swine Flu. MomsRising.org is spreading a virus . .. it’s their "Mother of the Year Award" video, and I got one! Hooray for me! Mom of the year! Does it matter that every other working mom is also receiving the "Mother of the Year Award" too? Heck no, […]

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On the importance of Flair

May 6, 2009

Tweet The origin of “flair”? Every Organizational Behavior scholar’s favorite cult flick: Office Space.

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