I just came across your site while doing some research for a presentation to our interns here on personal branding and social media. While I can appreciate your point of view, I absolutely disagree.

My presentation is based around a single main point – brand yourself professionally, using tools like LinkedIn, Blogs, Twitter, etc; and keep your personal life personal.

I want our students and employees to have a place to vent to their friends, near and far, about work. I also don’t want to necessarily see what they’re venting. As an employer, I find that the most important balance to keep is the work/life balance, and asking employees or potential employees to open themselves up to even more scrutiny than is already available on the internet is too much. Privacy has become something of an anachronism with the internet but as long as individuals can choose how private they want to be, I think there is some value in that determination. Having the self-realization to know that if the weekend before an interview, someone tagged me doing a keg stand or “getting close” with someone at a bar that I should probably limit the number of “public views” to my profile (because I DO want my friends to see those pictures). Everything that is important that one can do on Facebook, one can do through a variety of other means for the purpose of professional branding.

Just a personal opinion, but one that I share through trainings with all my hires, interns, and often clients.

Thanks for the post though, it opens a very valid debate.

-Kevin

I hope you might consider participating. The goal is to get discussion going about on-boarding and transitions.

Best wishes,

Michael

Enjoyed your piece this morning. It helped to clarify a few things stuck in my pondering.

I’m reminded of how often the story is used with slipshod application – I may have even been guilty of that use. The story was in my file on cards for a long time, I must have incorporated it on a number of occasions into various presentations. I recall it was a favorite among those I worked with at Charter psych. hospital back in the day.

So, your approach leaves room for the reader – that is what I appreciated about it. A well-worn fairy tale is like a dream, it suggests that the reader/listener is in fact, on any given day, all of the characters. Today, my self-absorbed delusional me appears to be on the throne. :>

cheers!

Doug

What I am grateful, though, are those who are on a journey and know that the path ahead will best be navigated by asking positive, empowering questions. For those wise people, a genuine curiosity become an internal and reliable GPS.

cheers,

mel

Your goal is not to disparage the United Way? Why not? If any organization was deserving of disparagement, it’s UW. Not only does it now de-list the Red Cross from workplace campaigns, it actively lobbies employers not to include Red Cross (or any other charity) on their own recognizance. UW has not only moved your cheese, it has eaten it and taken steps to ensure you never see cheese again. If the Red Cross thinks it is unseemly to fight back, then the Red Cross will allow itself to be marginalized out of the workplace giving sector.

Patrick Maguire
President
United Workers for the Untied Way
(among other things)