University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Digital You
Book

Digital You

Real Personal Branding in the Virtual Age

William Arruda
ATD, 2019
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • Engaging

Recommendation

William Arruda observes that many professionals attempt to promote themselves online without first defining their personal brand and what that brand represents. As a result, many digital profiles are inconsistent and offer unclear messages. Instead, he says you must spend time discovering the “Real You” by exploring your passions, values and goals before posting your profile online. Arruda offers practical advice to companies and employees for creating a personal brand and showcasing it for the digital age.

Summary

Personal branding makes a difference in today’s digital economy.

Tom Peters created the concept of personal branding in the late 1990s. By the time the term circulated widely, most working professionals focused on advancing themselves in corporate offices and their communities. They changed jobs infrequently, and thus lacked interest in generating personal professional labels as part of their careers. In addition, the tools people widely use today – the internet and the mobile phone – had yet to change how businesses and professionals communicated.

Career instability, economic downturns and increased digital communication, however, made corporations and their employees rethink personal branding, as they realized its benefits in and out of the office. In fact, the changes that technology thrusts upon businesses today – with the overwhelming volume of digital communication and the rise in remote work opportunities – push most workers and employers to seek ways to differentiate themselves in a rapidly changing global economy.

Significant changes in today’s workplaces influence how employees perceive personal branding. For example, not only do younger workers change...

About the Author

Best-selling author William Arruda is a motivational speaker and authority on personal branding. 

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