Cattle Call

The idea of developing a 'personal brand' has been a theme since I started this course in September. Our teachers have been promising that during our time at Centennial, we will develop our personal brand and eventually use it as a means to sell ourselves in the field. What, you ask, is a personal brand? That's what I want to know, too.

Self-branding seems similar to the idea of creating an online personality - it's just taking that personality offline and into the real world. Taking the aspects of yourself you are most fond of and most willing to develop, and turning them into your identity. And hey, while you're at it, why not throw in some traits you wish were a little more dominant, too?

But once you've created your personal brand, how are you going to know that it's a brand potential employers will want? And on the other end of the spectrum, what if that personal brand works wonders on your employers but eventually leads to conflict with your peers, co-workers, and future business partners?

Let's return to the Mercury 7. In the early 1960s, John Glenn (pictured with his Mercury capsule, Friendship 7) was the typical All-American - the clean cut, good looking, religious, faithful to his wife Marine. He quickly became the poster boy of NASA by showcasing these attributes at press conferences. But as Tom Wolfe flushes out in The Right Stuff, this all-around good guy brand that won over the American public was a source of conflict between Glenn and his fellow astronauts. NASA executives also found Glenn's good-guy brand to be a negative feature, as Flight Director Chris Kraft discusses in his autobiography, Flight.

So, how are we supposed to keep everyone happy? To keep ourselves safe and neutral, how many personal brands should we develop? Should we become two-sided, reserving a do-no-wrong-never-say-no brand for our employers while using the work-hard-play-harder-super-cool-guy brand on our colleagues? And what happens when we end up in a supervisor position and have employees reporting to us directly? Are we meant to develop a third laid-back-but-gets-it-done-while-still-enjoying-a-pint-at-lunch-with-the-staff brand?

He said She said

I was once given a paper to edit for a history of science journal. It argued that Darwin was entirely sexist for using the term anthropomorphic, man-centered, throughout On the Origin of Species. Darwin's thoughts on women aside, the author's argument was faulty at its core - anthropos is the Greek masculine noun for 'man' as in human or mankind (as a point of interest, 'aner'- is the male root while 'gune'- is the female root).

That was the first time I really realized that English has the huge disadvantage of being without a gender neutral personal pronoun.

I've been reading the IABC book - aka the ABC guide to excellence - and noticed that unspecified individuals are more often than not designated by 'she'. I can't decide if this is a result of the female dominance in the Communications and PR, or if ethics are behind the 'she's. Or if it's some remnant of neo-post-feminism or where ever the women's movement is these days. Either way, I feel like drawing attention to the individual as a 'she' puts more emphasis on gender division which in turn makes it an issue.

And it doesn't have to be. I can't say I've ever felt my gender to be either an asset or a hindrance when applying for a job. If you're good at what you do, you'll prove it. Although, as Sex and the City pointed out, it doesn't hurt to not cry at the office.

Maybe I've read too many history of science texts written by dead guys, or the live guys who study them, who refer to everyone as 'he'. I've never really seen a problem with male dominance in writing. Or maybe it's my years of Greek translating that makes me see a male pronoun as one that could be understood as neutral.

I don't really have a solution - I'm certainly not in a position to change the English language. It's just a thought I had...

So, thoughts on gender division in the workplace?

It's in the suit that you wear

When Miss April Winchester was on a her flight back to PEI for Christmas, she met Lawrence Heartz of Heartz Event Creation. April, never one to miss an opportunity to network, introduced herself as a future PR specialist to Heartz. In the course of their conversation, he revealed to her the true secret of success in PR as he sees it - it's all about looks. How you present yourself can make or break you.

I thought that was an interesting thing to say, especially to an impressionable young PR specialist. Most of us are under the impression that the career comes from the skill set and not the sweater set. To me, Heartz's comment said a lot about the industry.

With that in mind, I had to wonder how important dress is when applying for, say, an internship. It goes without saying that wearing a too small tube top or ripped jeans might disadvantage you in certain fields and that matching the office in which you work is your best bet, but is this really enough of an issue that we should discuss it?

Apparently, yes. I was actually shocked that dress became a topic of serious conversation in class the other day. I never thought that dress would be either important enough or enough of a gray area that it would be a class discussion. Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked. Maybe, since this is such a vital component to our prospective future in the Industry, we should treat our appearance the same as we do any skill we're currently developing into our skill set.

In the 1960s, astronaut candidates applying to NASA were coached in their dress. They were told what colour and height their socks should be and what length their pant hems should be. This way, when they sat down, the right amount of ankle - but never any skin - would show.

What does everyone else think. Is dress an issue important enough to be brought up in class? Perhaps Career Management should be a seven week course - that last week can be devoted to the study and discussion of hemlines? Show the right amount of sock-clad ankle for an A+.

















The Mercury Seven in 1963.

From left to right: Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra (partially obscured), Al Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Deke Slayton and Scott Carpenter.

Nice breaks in the pant legs, and not an ankle in sight.

Just be 'Good on Paper'...

I recently found two (1, 2) great articles in the Globe and Mail.

I'm can't say I'm against 'social networking' sites like Facebook. I'm a huge fan, actually. It's just so convenient when most of my closest friends live in different cities and time zones. It's also a great way to stay abreast of people from your past - I don't think I'm the only person who doesn't keep in touch with their whole high school grad class.

It's the idea and practice of using Facebook to sell yourself to potential employers that gets me because no one puts their real selves on the internet. If we did, we might as well save ourselves the effort and install giant Orwellian TV screens everywhere so people could watch us all the time. No, everyone puts a specific version of themselves on Facebook - carefully chosen pictures, interests, movies, quotes, books... We can even take out the one uncontrolled variable; we can remove the polluting effect of other people by hiding our walls.

I guess it's hard to say that the controlled Facebook profile is any different from the carefully crafted resume, but it seems that back in the day people couldn't hide. References were more important than your status as an active blog-reader. Maybe I'm just a cynic (ok, we all know I'm a cynic), but I'm getting the impression that employers are likely to hire the neatly-packaged socially-active applicant over the more private applicant.

I have to agree with Tossell. The emphasis on online 'self-branding' brings out the Holden Caulfield in me. Or just emphasizes my outer cynic.

Bibliophilia

I've never really had an addictive personality, but my bookshelf begs to differ. As does my amazon.ca account.
In the last year I've amassed a phenomenal amount of books. A lot of fiction, some of it respectable, some of it not. A fair amount of bargain basement recommendations from friends. Twenty of my new volumes - the majority of books in one subject - are autobiographies and a few scholarly works relating to the joyous fourteen years known as the space race.









Now if only I had time and a purpose for which to read all these enticing volumes...