Take control of your personal brand

Have you googled yourself lately? What would google say about you? That you are a great professional?, that your rock climb?, that you are a drunken frat boy/girl with antisocial behavior?  Most people pay very little attention to what is published about them on the web and most will recklessly document their good, the bad and the infamous part of their lives in Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest… but being so non-chalant about the information out there will not help us in our career or our personal lives. It can even affect your credit score. Dispel your illusion than your personal and professional lives are separate.

As more and more companies use some sort of social media background check, it has become increasingly important to own what your presence is on the web – you need to take control of your personal brand. These are the first five steps to take:

1)    Define your personal brand – what do you want to represent?

2)    Google yourself and figure out how far from your personal brand you are – document what you find, and your ranking in the page. Identify possible issues – somebody with the same name a rapist? A convict? A novel laurate?

3)    Visit your Facebook page as a friend – what does it show? What are your security options? Are there photos of you drinking? Doing something stupid?

4)    Take control of your name:

a.    Buy your domain name (if available) and establish a web presence for your brand.

b.    If you haven’t. Create appropriate profiles in all relevant social networks: Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Plaxo, etc.

c.    Register in all appropriate professional associations.

5)    Update or establish your online presence

a.    Update all social networks with relevant information (remove everything that doesn’t fit your brand)

b.    Start a professional blog  - keep it updated

c.    Visit professional forums and blogs and leave opinions and tips, be sure to add value to the conversation – use your real name for all professional forums (nobody knows who dirk117 is)

After a few weeks of this, google yourself again and check if you ranking or your presence have improved… keep at it. It takes time to build the online presence that you want.

BTW, let me know what you find about yourselves.

Helping a partner regain their performance edge.

An under-performing partner or coworker can bring down the performance of a division or the whole company – this may in turn, affect our end-of-year bonus, profit share or work environment. So, rather than saying that it is her or his problem and letting them be, sometimes it is in our best interest to help the under-achiever.

Recently I was working in a venture with a person that was under-performing and it was bringing the whole partnership productivity down. We were both responsible for parts of the venture that were complementary but mutually exclusive. My problem was how to help her achieve the desired performance without destroying the partnership by being invasive and controlling. The reasons for my decision to help were:

• It seemed fixable (no drug use, alcohol or any of the sorts). 
• Her past performance indicated that she was capable of much more than she was delivering. 
• Dissolving the partnership would have been a complicated and messy affair – and not good for both our reputations. 

My plan was to approach this person and state the problem and my intentions in a clear and respectful manner. I set up an appointment to discuss the situation in a non threatening environment and out of the office. During the conversation I setup myself as a supporter and ally and not a fixer – this is important! You are there to help not do their job (unless it is a problem in your area). At the end of the meeting we established an agreement that we would work on the problems and setup a general plan. Keep it simple.
Over the next few days, we clearly identified the problems, their causes and devised plans to fix and correct each one of them, as well as establishing indicators and goals for each one of them (you have to know when you are done). We identified everything that may be affecting her performance, from rebellious employees to over-dependent clients, and put a plan in place to correct them.
Over time, we tracked our plans and made corrections, while keeping our eyes in our indicators and goals. As problems started to disappear her productivity went back to what was expected and we developed a better working relationship.

You should know your economic environment style

I am always thinking about ways to make a business more efficient and cost effective. When functions, processes and companies are not well organized I can almost see the destruction of economic wealth. Because of this, there are two economic environments that suit me rather well:

1. The downturn. Companies are looking for ways to be more efficient and reduce costs. This plays beautifully into my natural way of thinking.
2. The boom. Increasing capacity by increasing efficiency is the name of the game. Companies recognize that it takes time to put new resources into place - so the more well thought out the processes, the better they can cope with accelerated growth.

What about you? Describe the variables that make your work more interesting (for you). Think about your strengths and apply them to the current environment. This should give you some insight into why your work feels so rewarding sometimes and why in others it just feels blah.

Now, turn the thinking around. Think about your company and what different environments increase your worth to them. Make sure they know your value proposition based on the current economic environment.

Product Management & its strategic implications

Product management is a market-driven approach to develop and manage products or services:

• Defines what the product should be – is accountable to users for feature sets, navigation, quality, and overall experience

• Is a cross-functional discipline: involves strategy, product development and marketing

• Is accountable for overall product direction, key decisions, including in some cases full P&L control or at least budget control
  

• Ensures that the final product meets specifications

• Evangelizes product to internal and external stakeholders

The strategic implications of a robust Product Management function are many: from increasing the value of the company, understanding the customer today and in the future, ensuring that all possible revenue is being captured, guiding future product investments and controlling the current cost structure of the products, to name a few. For any organization, it is imperative that these and other issues are being taking care of in the Product Management function.

Don't fail at your career strategy by choosing the now job

I have been having a lot of discussions about career strategy with people looking for jobs, and I am seeing the desperation setting in, the prevaling strategy right now is: "get anything, NOW!" If you have reached the end of the rope (no more savings, no extra income from spouse/partner/family), then by all means it has become an issue of survival and the right strategy is: "whatever it takes". But for everybody else, it is a very bad move to take that attitude. If you read beyond what this Forbes article is saying it looks like at the end of the day this recession is a career killer.

The downside to the quitters line of thinking is that you are adjusting your expectations and your search accordingly: are you looking for jobs at your level or lower? have you in your mind already taken a pay cut? are you thinking value or price for your services?

The decision of what jobs to pursue and what to take is not only relevant to this job now but to your career. If you take a 50% pay cut, do you honestly believe you will get it back next year? I can assure you that you wont. If you go two levels down, do you think your next position will resume where you were pre-recession? No, you will have to fight your way back up again - think about it as lost years.

Regardless of the recession, your value and your level of preparedness are what determines your strategy. If you have a strong war chest (or emergency fund or other income sources), you have to ride the storm. The income you aren't receiving is your opportunity cost. It will hurt in the short term but it will pay in the long term.