Personal Branding and the CETL Faculty Spotlight Video

Recently, Texas Wesleyan's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning did a faculty spotlight video of me that now appears on YouTube. It gave me the chance to article my philosophy on social media and to practice something I preach all of the time--personal branding.

Personal branding is an impact part of getting a job today. For most of us, including me, it's difficult to determine what our "brand" is. And after we've discovered our personal brand, what happens when we need to change that brand?

Well before you start wondering what happens when things change or you change, it's important to take that first step and establish a brand. I've been working on this for a while now, including my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious, Slideshare, Flickr and YouTube presence in addition to this blog. What takes work is continually creating the content to make these tools valuable in constantly updating my "brand."

I encourage all of you, especially my students or former students, to jump into the world of social media and establish your personal brand. It's easier than ever to do this, and it will pay off in the long run when that great job you want includes outlining social media strategy in support of a company brand or news dissimenation efforts.

In the mean time, check out my video created by the CETL and let me know what you think...am I too gray?

Getting Enmeshed in the Web

I just finished an article for PR Strategist co-written with Dr. Amy Collier. The article was about using wikis in public relations, and we are the experts.

Here's the funny thing: I just began working with wikis, and public relations isn't my first profession in mass communication. I'm a trained reporter and editor. So how can I write this article and be considered an expert? Well believe it or not, it's all about community.

In the Parker J. Palmer book that I'm reading, The Courage to Teach, Palmer talks about how getting enmeshed in the web of life creates community. He also talks about how we can only create knowledge or truth in this community-like setting.

For me that means, I can wallow around in the world of wikis, and with the help of my co-author, Dr. Collier, I can discover truth--in this case how to use wikis in public relations.

When I've wallowed around in the world of anything on my own, I've found it difficult to make connections with truth or knowledge. There's just too much out there for me to discover and make sense of on my own.

It's only through getting enmeshed in the web of community and depending on someone else to help guide my journey that I've encountered a little piece of truth and produced a little bit of knowledge. That's a pretty strong endorsement of collaboration from my perspective. And a pretty strong endorsement for seeking and using communal knowledge.

Using social media to build community

This week, I'm doing a presentation about the use of wikis in public relations. My topic, in particular, is using wikis for media relations and marketing. While that's a wonderful idea, wikis help build community. A Business Week article really drives this point home. The examples that they provide really give you an indication of how great wikis are at creating and sustaining community, especially when you consider Hollywood has gotten into the act by creating wikis for some of its most popular shows.

The reason that wikis are so good at creating community and blogs are not as good at it is that wikis lack controls. The average person, for the most part, can post, edit, delete and create whatever he or she pleases. This is the essence of letting go of the message, something that many communicators have a problem doing.

Hopefully, I can convince some PR-types that letting go is a good thing, because to effectively create community in an online forum, you have to allow others to create and become a part of the creation. Something that even Business Week would recommend.