The Brand Above a Brand, and a Goodbye

           There are a lot of points made in the article by Josh Hyatt on Fortune Magazine’s August 16, 2010 issue but what I like most is his statement that ‘a personal brand must highlight your special strengths, yet at the same time it also must not be too self-promotional…’ It is because I think it summarizes the entirety of the paper. The article also presented different cases wherein the application of self branding which is for me significant as a student who foresees himself working in a corporate-legal firm and who also dreams to have a “brand within a brand” as what the article calls it.

            MEASURE. The article emphasized that having a right gauge on yourself, which can be for example a SWOT Analysis of one’s self can be helpful since knowing your strengths and weaknesses can help you in determining and focusing which talent needs to be highlighted. I’d see this aspect as a basis on academic performance, for example measuring your current standing in a class.

            COMPARE. It is really important to your classmates’ standings as well to be able to determine where you are at in the class. As applied to the industry, it is also your advantage if you know a lot especially the in and out of your field since it is vital for you to be able to compare yourself with others and thus can lead you to a good decision and course of action.

            ACTION. If you have determined and established your skills- in this case your grade standing, and compared it to the class and to your standards. An output will be obtained from these data that will make you decide on what action is pertinent to the situation. If your grade exceeded your expectations, you have to maintain it but if it is lower than your standards you have to push through your limits to reach or to exceed your standards.

            This article is so relevant especially nowadays when social networking media and the internet penetrates the working environment. But the article emphasized something on the values of the company where you are in. The first case presented that employees who successfully build brand within companies must know and must be hyper-aware of the behaviours and values of the company, since it might be violating its self-inflicted regulations just like what happened to Mark Pannell, the personality in the first case who was kicked out of his job just because the company thought he was just wasting his time online.

            Among my classes this heart-breaking yet enjoying semester, BA 101 would be one of the first subjects that will be on my mind as I reminisce this sem, maybe after a year. It is because this subject made me more aware and opened a wider perspective on the corporate world. And it totally changed the self-inflicted stereotype I have had to the students of the College of Business Administration.