A Philosophical Debate Over Personal Branding

I decided to move the conversation happening over on Facebook (surrounding personal branding) regarding my post on Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog: From Identity to Personality. Be Remembered.

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Dave Bennett:
Dear Social Media Expert, twitterific and facebookish Kyle Lacey,

First off let me say that I respect what you’re doing in marketing, you’re pushing the edges of the field, you’re making people money, and you’re (hopefully) doing something that you love. All things I respect and root for in this world.

I have some issues, a few philosophical peccadilloes that I need to pick with you and the industry you participate in. So from one double major in philosophy to another (I think I remember you being involved in AU’s philosophy program) let me start my being acerbic and dispensing with pretense.

What you call identity and personality seem to really be pretentious self-projections. Don’t get me wrong, they might be really successful self-projections that gain favor, popularity, and a following but they are far from human dignity.

What you see as the point of self expression is external recognition. But the self is something internal and independent from what others think of you, if you are basing who you are on how to attract others, then you really are nothing at all. You’re a pretentious clone of perceived likes and dislikes, a customer service invertebrate bending to the latest marketing trends.

My issue isn’t really with customer service or with marketing, its with the collusion of these two and personal identity. When in reality your virtual representation is really the most controlled and least personal representation you can come up with. That is something I am ok with, but call it what it is: namely an advertisement, don’t continue to add to the massive amount of illiteracy out there.

What I mean is that there are many people who can read, but few who are literate, few who mean what they say and understand what is meant when they read. Don’t add to the misuse of language and self-understanding in your furthering of marketing, viral marketing, etc.

Branding myself is the biggest pretense yet, and while successful, crosses into the unethical when it associates the person solely with the symbol. As if a symbol could ever really encompass a person, especially when personal branding doesn’t really represent the person at all but the concoction of personal investment in an idea or product.

I guess what I really want to know is: when you leave an emotional response on twitter or facebook, create a following, if your emotional response is raw. If it is independent of your desire for a following. And if it isn’t then is it you or a self-projection of you? A dumbassed question really, but it begs the ethics of human dignity.

Where is human dignity in self-branding when self-branding doesn’t allow for unpopular responses? I hate the idea of selling your “self”, because what is sold isn’t “self” but what the customer wants. Call it what it is.

Basically, I’m wondering, where do these things fall into twitter and facebook marketing? How does self-branding differ from self-projection?

Me/Kyle:

Let me first state that the idea “from identity to personality” is loosely based off of a excerpt from Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe.

“Identity is descriptive. It is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma. Brand identities are unique and express a point of difference. But this is only the first step. Brand personalities, on the other hand, are special. They have a charismatic character that provokes an emotional response. American airlines has a strong identity, but Virgin airlines as personality.”

One other thing to think about in terms of my post:

The things I write about are not suppose to based in any type of philosophical nature… it would be like scientist arguing my logic using scientific reasoning. I write and discuss concepts in business communication, period.

The post you read and responded to… was merely an idea behind personal branding. I am not arguing the point of self discovery and emotional response in terms of inner angst (or beauty). I am plainly talking about the concepts of a story… the emotional stimulation a customer or client will receive when they connect with something you write or say..

I write what I think because it is reality.. it isn’t steeped in some inner personal conflict or unrealistic interpretation of identity vs personality. It is business plain and simple… I will give more soon. Thank you for your thoughts. I love debating and trying to solve issues in communication!

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What do you think? Is it worth furthering the conversation on this blog?

Example of How NOT To Run A Web Service: Bloglines

In my blog reader infancy I used the Bloglines RSS reader service. I was pretty happy with the overall service until I discovered Google Reader , which is hands down better than BlogLines.

I had installed Bloglines as an add-on to my browsers and it had been pretty easy to subscribe to certain blogs I found valuable: you just hit the RSS button and it would direct you to the BlogLines website. This small producitivity tool soon became an annoying tool when I couldn’t figure out how to delete it from my browser. Of course, we could blame my ADD on the fact that I could not delete the service but my browser still redirects to BlogLines whenever I click the RSS button.

I wanted to delete my account so I tried to sign on and unfortunately (since I haven’t used the service in a year) my account needed a new password. The Bloglines service needed to verify my account and so they sent a verification email to my inbox. I have verified the account three times and have still not recieved any email from BlogLines.

I thought to myself, “Self. This is a web service company. Their customer support must be decent. You should try that.” I proceeded to email the customer support department and waited for the email.

and waited…

and waited..

and waited..

I have since asked for support three times through email to no avail. They have not contacted me and I have STILL not received a verification email for the account.

Does anyone see a problem here? Shouldn’t an RSS Reader Service be conscious of the ability bloggers and readers have in spreading a bad vibe/message?

I am extremely dissapointed in how Bloglines has completely ignored my requests for help in deleting their service. If I was in their shoes I would have (at least) responded with some courteousy in order to win back the account or keep the user.

This should be a prime example of how NOT to run a web service. The last thing I want to hear is that they have been busy with updates and a re-design. The last thing I want to hear is that I cannot delete my account and they would rather not help me uninstall the service.

So this is my rant about Bloglines. Screw it. If you want me to keep my account send me a stupid verification email! They are making it pretty easy for me to hate them right now.