A couple of years ago, I explored the concept of personal branding. The topic kept coming up in internal discussions, and I couldn’t shake the feeling it was both important and slightly performative. As I’m now launching this site, finally moving content off internal SharePoint, those contradictions still feel relevant.
Here’s what I was thinking back then.
Everyone has a brand! You might think yours is “technical expert and hard-working” but if you don’t promote it properly, it can mutate and sell itself as “nerd and no-life”…
Is it scalable? The risk I see if everyone starts actively promoting their own brand is inflated ego and everyone trying to grab the spotlight. That can get messy and noisy! How is collaboration possible in these conditions? Isn’t it contradictory with company cultures that promote “giving your ego a day off”?
Also, while companies are trying to prevent burnout, promoting a personal brand can have the opposite effect. You suddenly have to take great care of the image you’re projecting and what others may think about you. This might get overwhelming if not done properly.
What I Thought It Was #
Personal branding is clearly a trending concept…but what is it exactly?
I thought building a personal brand was about creating content and sharing knowledge for a community, bringing some kind of value to the world.
I had a few examples in mind:
- Ivan Pepelnjak - ipspace.net - Deep networking technical content
- Russ White - rule11.tech - Network architecture and philosophy
- Patrick Gray - risky.biz - Security news and analysis
I liked that idea. I’d started developing my own version on internal SharePoint, though building a community around it proved harder than expected.
I could see the benefit of an external version. By becoming a public character, transitioning to another company would be easier. You don’t need to rebuild your reputation from scratch. But it would be much more demanding and require more attention.
Or Maybe It’s Simpler? #
Maybe I was wrong. Personal branding might just be about a specific trait or something that makes you stand out, as simple as that girl with green hair or a colleague who literally put “Chief Stroopwafel Officer” as her official title. Or like a former colleague who went all-in on the concept and built wifrizzy.com, literally applying the “specific trait” recommendation to the letter. (She also wrote a solid piece on posting online as an engineer that’s worth a read.)
Following an internal discussion, I wanted to learn more about the concept.
As an appetizer, I read a short HBR article. I enjoyed it and wanted to dive further, so I worked through this book:
Sell Yourself: How to Create, Live, and Sell a Powerful Personal Brand
By Cindy McGovern
The Reality Check #
This was relatively disappointing. I was curious to learn how to develop a community, how to generate engagement…
Instead, the concept of personal brand looked more superficial, a pimped version of the classical term: reputation.
This book is more about how to define and control your own reputation, how others perceive you.
The first thing would be to create and define your brand. It has to be authentic, and for good reasons: you need to live your brand every single minute of your life! The way Dr. McGovern presented it sounded pretty demanding, no opportunity to get tipsy, to burst in anger, or in general to lose control. That might damage your brand. All aspects of your life have to be carefully planned and calculated.
That sounded a bit daunting to me!
The next step would be to sell your brand, and this is where I was expecting the book to cover blogs and social media. That section only briefly addressed the topic. It was more a series of practical tips and examples like, for example, don’t sell yourself short and ask for what you want.
While this book addressed a different facet of personal branding than I initially had in mind, it was still worth reading (or actually listening to). Even if I wasn’t buying the full picture, I could still see some value in it:
Everyone has a brand. If you don’t define it, others will define it for you, and you might not like what they come up with.
On a side note, I also bumped into this academic paper. That made me feel better. It confirmed the topic was trending and that one of the main challenges was to define what it even means.
Where I’m Landing Now #
I didn’t reject the concept entirely. There’s value in being intentional about your reputation rather than letting it drift, sharing knowledge with communities (when you have the energy), standing out in ways that are authentic to you, and building portability in your career.
But here’s what bothers me:
The star system problem: You don’t want to turn your profession into a star system where customers require working exclusively with X or Y. On the contrary, you should aim at providing the same level of quality whoever delivers the service. This should be done through knowledge sharing, templates, enablement…
The collaboration paradox: How do you balance self-promotion with teamwork? If everyone is building their personal brand, who’s left to do the collaborative, unglamorous work?
The authenticity burden: Living your brand 24/7 sounds exhausting. Are we supposed to turn ourselves into perpetual performance artists?
The marketing machine: Companies love the idea of employees building personal brands… free marketing! But people are developing a personal brand on a voluntary basis and for their own good, not for the greater good of the company. There should be clear boundaries.
Where I’m Landing Now #
I didn’t reject the concept entirely. There’s value in:
- Being intentional about your reputation rather than letting it drift
- Sharing knowledge with communities (when you have the energy)
- Standing out in ways that are authentic to you
- Building portability in your career
But I remain skeptical of:
- The performative aspect - constantly managing every interaction
- The individual focus - at the expense of collaboration
- The exhaustion potential - adding more pressure to already demanding careers
- The superficiality - reputation management dressed up as “branding”
The Real Question #
The question isn’t “How do I build a personal brand?” but rather:
“How do I do work I’m proud of, share what I learn, and stay true to who I am… without turning myself into a product?”
Because at the end of the day, I’d rather be known for what I’ve contributed than for how well I’ve marketed myself.
And yet… here I am, launching jdal.be …