Digital You

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...