the webthinking blog

Ted Matthews, Brand Coach says “a brand is what people think of you”. He actually stated that couple of years ago. In this (digital) day in age, Mitch Joel kicks it up a notch to “your brand is what Google thinks of you”. I’m also a big fan of Chris Brogan’s vision on personal branding.

In order for me to measure the latter, I did a bit of ego searching.

Disclosure: I have used a freshly installed browser to conduct this search and take the screen capture – Opera for Mac, no cookies, no previous similar searches, no account history, nothing that could have altered the search results page (SERP).

According to the White Pages (I have no reasons to show up there), I am one of the few “Baldeans” in North America, and certainly there are many more in the world. So yes, I’m pretty happy with the current SERP, so far: my main site, my blog, my LinkedIn profile, my Facebook page, my tweets and some of my pictures.

How do you want to be found? How do you measure your personal branding? What do you want people to think of ya?

If you have met me, you probably know by now – I am sold to LinkedIn and its benefits.

Here is something to think about: Goldman Sachs made the headlines quite often over the last few months. Have you ever wondered why Goldman Sachs does not have a list of job openings on their careers web site? Because they know talent does not hang out every day on their corporate web site.

Now, why do you think they have recently acquired a stake in LinkedIn? Aha. That’s why. They know they need to be present in this place, listening and watching for skilled prospects. And Goldman Sachs is not the only company.

When did you last update your profile?

I have spent a great deal of time over the past week scouting for prospects on LinkedIn, to backfill a newly created position on my team, at work. I need someone really good, with a large set of skills, a “hybrid” if you will.

What really struck me was more than a dozen of good profiles with absolutely no contact information: no email, no website, no portfolio, nothing. I was looking for a web savvy person, not a doctor.

How can that be? Why bother creating a detailed online resume if you provide no means of contact what so ever?

If you have created your profile just because you have received ten invites from your colleagues and people you know or if you are just trying to “score” connections, set some time aside and update your profile. Be real and transparent, you have nothing to hide or to loose.

As a side note, other questions came to mind: how can you improve your keyword search results, so that your personal profile shows up on top of the list? What does “keyword relevance” actually mean for LinkedIn?

So I walk into Indigo the other day, looking to buy Godin’s Tribes. I look it up on the computer to find its locations in the store: 20 items in “Business General” and I find the proper shelf, but guess what? No “Tribes” there. Well, the computer said there are still 20 items available. I go ask for help – the fella was pretty quick – ah, they are still in the back, we just got them today. Bingo, I was happy and lucky, I still had a chance to walk out the store with my own copy. $22 later, I was part of the “tribe”.

Later that day, I find out the “book” is available over in iTunes, as an audio book. Narrated by Seth Godin himself. For less than $1. Genius! And a Kindle version is in the works with Amazon, too.

So, I paid $23 for the book – paper and audio. Now I want to consume it as soon as possible. Where do I start?

The little one was napping in the his stroller for about an hour now, in the park, while I found myself noting my head several times *listening* to Godin reading the book for me!

I got home and could not wait to pick up the “book” and continue “reading” it, starting directly on page 52.

Knowing my limited time, I hope to be able to finish reading or listening to it over the next couple of days. I can do that while I’m driving or sitting on the train.

Seth, thanks for making me feel part of your “tribe”, I consider myself being lucky. On the same note, I have met *in person* at least three of the sneezers (have you read Purple Cow?) that got their picture printed on the back cover. After all, I have learned about this amazing book through a podcast I’m subscribed to. That’s another “tribe”.

BBC study: consumers spending 25 minutes viewing streaming media on the web.
When BBC moved from Windows platform to Flash the amount of people they were able to attract increased 8x.

Watch the whole video:

55 minutes on new means of expression. Enjoy!

Michael Dell: Today there are about 1bn people attached to the Internet. Everyday, about 500,000 new ones come on the Internet for the very first time in their lives. So that means, the Internet population in 3-4 years is roughly gonna double. About 85% of the growth comes from emerging countries.

I have just finished reading the free eBook manifesto – Trust Economies: Investigating the New ROI of the Web by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Excellent piece!

I’m starting to think that B2C has now changed its meaning to “Business to Community”. What’s your opinion?