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Careers: Personal Branding and Change

Change. It’s certainly been the mantra of the Democratic primary race but it also has an important place in personal branding.

Take my profession, public relations. Just as the Internet has dramatically rewritten – and shaken -- the newspaper business, it has changed public relations tactics and even strategy. Where once public relations focused on media relations, today a lot of public relations is focused on Google relations. Instead of putting all our energies into getting our clients on page one of a major publication, many of us are also focused on getting on page one of Google. Different skills and tactics are involved from the old days of simply pitching journalists.

Which is simply to say that the profession is evolving and so must its practioners. The same goes for personal branding. Standing still is equivalent to death.

Change today is the great force rumbling through so many professions and industries. David Brooks in today’s New York Times calls the incessant changes happening in industry a “skills revolution.”

“We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combing information.”

Personal branders need to take a page from companies. The Times also today reports on the changes afoot at Kodak, which is trying to redefine itself in the digital, as opposed to film age. For Kodak, that means turning itself inside out, exiting businesses and entering new ones and changing the organizational structure and culture.

How are you evolving your personal brand so it stays relevant in this never static, cognitive age?

Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications