A melangerie of courses...personal branding...

In the course of this MBA, I have attended a multitude of courses and have often wondered if I will ever need some of them or learn anything from them. Like, for example, we had a session the other day on Personal Branding and the art of writing a bio and some in the class questioned the need for it. I once ran a personal website which was very well maintained, if I may say so, and very well meta-tagged. So much so that individuals searching for the company I worked for ended up on my homepage (you may think this is great but it actually crashed my site as I ran out of bandwidth). And I got headhunted twice when recruiters searching the web for a defined set of technical skills landed on my page. So, obviously the subject of personal branding interested me and I was willing to give up an hour or two listening to the presenter/coach just to find out more. I never thought about the lecture again until, that is, this morning when I was asked to submit a bio for the session in Switzerland. I had one from before but it was outdated and for a different purpose altogether that there was no point submitting it. I still enjoy the same hobbies but my professional career has evolved quite a bit. So, instead of revising for my Management Accounting and Decision Making exam on Monday, I spent the morning writing a bio that depicted me, today, correctly without sounding cheesy. And, as you can tell, I am spending my afternoon blogging about it so Management Accounting, I see, is slipping away slowly. I better get focussed.

Nonetheless, I now have a professional bio that focuses on my areas of key strengths (subject area, technical and organisational skills, etc.), work experience, educational background, professional memberships, and a short snippet on personal interests. And, if you are writing one, I suggest looking up for bios of other well-known individuals in your area and then developing a set of items to include in your own bio. Remember that writing your bio will also help you prepare your 'Elevator Pitch' and, as the coach said, a bio is just one of many brand "touch points" and you need to give it due detail and time. I have sent mine for feedbacks to a few individuals and I am sure I will get a few comments.