Paul Allchin, science and medicine reference specialist at the British Library, kindly reviews our recent event on personal branding presented by Kathy Ennis and Lyndsay Rees-Jones.
I was attracted to this workshop because I felt it might offer me a way of defining my professional online profile and persona. It was also an ideal opportunity to get to know the SLA. The SLA team were great hosts, with wine, nibbles and chat before and after the workshop. Getting to know fellow information professionals flourished in a friendly atmosphere. The workshop was led by Kathy who was a natural speaker and supported by Lyndsay who added many examples and key points.
Kathy opened the session by sharing corporate logos and their brand messages with the audience. Each conveyed a collection of thoughts and feelings reinforced by marketing, that targets an audience, a market, with a distinctive identity and customer loyalty.
Personal branding likewise strives to define and communicate our passions, strengths, skills, attitudes, behaviours and core values and is based on the science of impressions management. Kathy’s presentation revolved around six key questions we all need to ask ourselves if we wish to define our brand to promote ourselves for personal and business benefits.
These 6 questions are:
(1) “Who am I?” in terms of roles in life, we play manager, sibling, father, wife, etc., and our core values. We were invited to select 5 words to describe our values. I really liked Kathy’s concept of Who am I when? That this question is situation dependant, gets fossilised and can be changed, unlearnt and relearnt.
(2) “Where am I now ?” in terms of satisfiers, dis-satisfier life factors?
(3) What are our skills and competencies? Have we applied a SWOT analysis on ourselves? And what are our transferable skills?
(4) What changes do I want to make … in what time frame? In one, five or ten years?
(5) What is the visual, vocal and verbal me? And do we wish to change the way we look, present ourselves, sound and speak as professionals?
(6) How do I make change happen? What are my goals, visions and strategies for making these changes and by when?
In struggling to define your “Me”, Kathy suggested canvassing friends, family and colleagues to supply 3 words, for example, relaxed, friendly, confident, as they would use to describe you as they see you.
I felt the workshop offered some very insightful pearls of wisdom, such as catching up with who we have become, simply changing our roles, reframing our weaknesses as strengths, redefining our criteria of personal and professional success, and identifying our prime drivers such as money, influence and people contact.
Kathy took a very human approach to her subject; acknowledging how we can turn failures into learning opportunities and rebalance our perspectives by overcoming the critical or over confident child within us all.
Kathy and Lyndsay’s audience were a group of new, well established and self- employed information professionals in a variety of roles, who really participated in the spirit of self-questioning and discovery.
I would recommend these workshops hosted by the SLA as a valuable contribution to our on-going professional awareness and development.