Today, was the third day of 2010 & the first ever *real* Generation Y Personal Branding Meetup. Seven diverse young people from different backgrounds/industries all got together to discuss where they wanted to go in their lives, and how their personal brands could get them there.

(Mind you, this is not a sample that can shed light on an entire generation so the title is a tad misleading. But ultimately that is the goal of this meetup. This is only the beginning of an ongoing conversation.)

First who were the attendees:

Doreen – a recent business administration Berkeley grad, & founding editor of BARE Magazine

Pollina – Doreen’s good friend & psychology soon-to-be-grad from Cornell

Nican – Successful basketball player, photographer with an accounting background at Berkeley

Yahya – Actor/model/photographer with an architecture degree from Berkeley

Gleb – iPhone designer, UI/Usability expert and recent Cognitive Science grad from Berkeley

Amir – Personal trainer with high-profile clientele

Arielle – you know me

We started off by defining what a personal brand is:

Nican kicked us off with a little poetry, “your personal brand is not quite you. It is the essence of you.” Doreen agreed and added, “it is the best way for people to remember you.” Gleb mentioned that your personal brand should not “capture everything about you”, and Pollina finished his statement by mentioning it should be a “concise, crafted organization of who you are”. In short, we all came to the agreement that: your personal brand is your memorable crafted identity based on who you are but not your entire personality.

We discussed how our online brands were working (and not working) for us:

We pulled up almost everyone’s website or twitter account to discuss our first reactions. Yahya explained how his online presence is highly energetic and how he wants potential clients to immediately know it will be fun to work with him. Doreen offered a different opinion. She explained that her number one work-related first impression should be her work ethic (not an amiable personality), and she reflected on whether or not her online presence was communicating that. Nican’s website popped up, and we listened as he described his simplistic style and it’s arrival within his website design. We checked out Gleb’s Twitter profile to see if he was communicating the right things to land the work he really wanted.

Sidetopics:

As with all discussions, some other questions sprung up. Doreen, Nican and I spoke extensively on the value of specialization. Doreen asked the big question, “how do you figure out exactly what your brand to be if you are interested in so many things?”. We decided the key was taking advantage of all opportunities, trying new things and cultivating a project list or portfolio. The portfolio does not have to be particularly specialized at the beginning, but you can still display your talent while you discover what you ultimately want to do.

A discussion between Amir, Nican & Yahya brought up another sidetopic under the question “can privacy, itself, be a brand?” or rephrased “can not having a personal brand be branding?”. Which was an excellent question for me to add my two cents to. I described the difference between Trader Joes & Whole Foods. Where one has built a great brand by doing/saying nothing and the other has built a great brand by engagement. The key here is whether or not you consciously or unconsciously develop a personal brand – you have a personal brand.

Closing:
We finished by discussing our end goals, exchanging contact information & a lot to think about. I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg concerning the topic of generation y – my generation – and how we cultivate our online personal brands. But, I’m more than thrilled to have this outlet to connect with young people and discuss it.

If you’d like to check out the next one. We are inviting all generation y members (not academically correct but let’s just say 18-30+-) to come and chat.

place: sacks coffee house

date: sun, jan 17, 2010

time: 2:00 – 3:30 PM

bring: ideas & a laptop, if you want