Great discussion yesterday with Seth Godin, Holly Ross, and Beth Kanter about nonprofits, social media, and innovation.
Beth and Holly have great posts – read them before you read this because their sums were so good I’m going to write about something else.
I want to talk to the young professionals of our community.
I thought yesterday’s discussion would revolve around tactics to get other people to change – like how to prove a new technology to others in your org.
Really it was about how you can change – into a person who proves new technologies to others in your org.
I know of a technique that can help you do this. You will think it is weird and unnecessary but you have to do it. It’s called personal branding. It’s what we do now.
Personal branding forces you to figure out what you’re about and define that for others.
Some tools for this are starting a blog about your industry, commenting on other blogs about your industry, and learning as much as you possibly can about the problems in your industry. For nonprofits it might be fund raising in an economic downturn, delivering food to Somalia, or getting people to come to your event.
Blog writing will force you to come up with what you really think about an issue. It will help you gain your own clarity and insight, which can be empowering. Keep it about business and ideas and not about your cat or work place annoyances.
On the right of this page you area reading are most of my favorite blogs. Get yourself set up with Google Reader to have their updates come to you instead of wasting time going to them. You can even read them on your iPhone.
After a few months you will have enough knowledge to start solving real problems in your industry and connections with other people who can make things happen.
Then it’s just up to you to get things done.
If you already have a blog and are out there making things happen, please post your link below so I and others can connect with you.
Update: Great post on personal branding predictions for 2010 to check out.