The Rynge Blog

You do not have a personality!

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:26:00 +0000

When talking to friends or introducing myself as working with Personal Branding, many responds that they do not want to appear as someone they don't are. I totally understand that and would never suggest someone to pose as someone they are not. However, this arises another interesting question:

Who are you, really?

As Steve Chandler once said in his 100 ways to motivate yourself: "I am sorry if this offends you, but you do not have any personality", referring to that the personality you "have" is created by many different factors such as environment, peoples opinions, etc. and that you can change it if you want. Just as you can change career, you can change who you are, and so, there is nothing wrong in working with altering your personal brand into something new and something that you want to be. Actually, imagining that you are something else, often is a great way of getting there. Ask any psychologist working with athletes how they picture their self in a position where they want to be in the future.

Are you defined by your network?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:01:00 +0000

When talking about personal branding, there are a some experts that says that you can be defined/described just by looking at the network you have. The studies in the field are mostly conducted on off-line social networks, but of course this applies also for on-line communities (or even more) such as Facebook, Xing, MySpace etc.

The Swedish business newspaper E24.se has an article today about a recent study at Berkley in California, which shows that more universities students prefers Facebook in front of MySpace, which is more populated by persons starting to work right after high-school.
Even BBC covered this story in this article.

10 PR commandments and how to use it for Personal Branding (7--10)

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:49:00 +0000

7) Thou shall embrace blogging - It´s not a fad, it´s here to stay. Be part of it.

If you have the time and the ability to write a blog about what you like and what you stand for in an interesting way, it is an excellent way to promote your brand and it does not even cost anything more than your time. However, it could be good to develop a blog strategy, so that what you write is actually in line with the brand you want to build.

8) Thou shall use a simple language - People want to hear from you in a human voice. Don´t hind behind advanced words. It will soon sound like ye olde English (or whatever language you speak).

Maybe some professor or government official will be impressed by your advanced language, but to get the point across it is much better to be clear and specific.

9) Thou shall tell the truth - If you don´t tell the truth, it will come out anyway.

This is the most important thing in both business branding and personal branding. If you lie, your trust will decline and no one will believe you later on when you are telling the truth. Branding is all about trust, make sure that you are consistent in your trustworthiness.

10) Thou shall thinketh in 360 degrees - Ask not what you can do for your fellow humans, but also what your fellows humans can do for you.

Spreading and building your brand is in your hands, but that does not mean that you can not think of how others can help you in your quest. Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful marketing tool. Make it easy for your trusted ones to help spreading your brand.

10 PR commandments and how to use it for Personal Branding (4-6)

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:21:00 +0000

4) Thou shall not be fake - Keep it real; don't hide behind characters and phony IDs.

This should be obvious, but many persons try to be something that they are not. A strong brand consists of honesty and trustworthiness, none of which will improve if you do try to be someone else and do not walk the talk.

5) Covet thy customers - Don't sue your fans. You will alienate them.

A basic rule is that if you help people, something good will come back to you. Some call it karma, some networking. For me it is just common sense. The customers in the commandment represent the people around you, so be honest and friendly with the people around you. No one likes a grump.
Just remember, it is not wrong to stand up for your self, but there are good and bad ways to make your point.

6) Thou shall be open and engaging - Involve your customers in the PR process. Invite them to help you develop winning ideas and become your spokespeople.

This is also common sense, but as someone said "common sense is not that common". Jesus had his apostles to spread his word and build his brand. Was he successful in this strategy? Did he come up with all the answers himself and told people what to think, or did he leave the thinking to the people so that they could draw their own conclusions?
Basically, do not be a know-it-all, be humble to others convictions, that's the only way to win their trust and in the end letting them convince themselves.

10 PR commandments and how to use it for Personal Branding (1-3)

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 09:32:00 +0000

Steve Rubel has come up with 10 commandments for public relations professionals. I was thinking of how to use those commandments in the work of personal branding, so I have written some comments to each of the commandments. Here are comments on the first three commandments.

1) Thou shall listen - Utilize every avenue available to you to listen actively to what your publics have to say and feed it back to the right parties.

How do you handle the feedback you get from people around you? For starters, begin with writing down the positive and negative feedback you get. Then look at it and see how it matches the way you want to be seen. Maybe the negative feedback is in line with what you want to communicate and maybe you are getting positive feedback that communicates something you don't want to be associated with.
When people starts talking about you in a way that matches the personal brand you want to achieve you have laid the foundation of your personal brand.

2) Remember that all creatures great and small are holy - It doesn't matter if it's the New York Times calling on you or an individual blogger, both have power. Take them all seriously.

Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and works in both directions. With the right approach you can build your brand by stating your principle to people that does not agree with you, no matter if it is your neighbourhood or the head of the company you want to work at. With the wrong approach however, even upsetting your neighbour can have devastating consequences if he/she talks about you to the wrong person.

3) Honour thy customer - Create programs that celebrate customers and they will celebrate you.

This does not only apply to your customer, it applies to all things in life. I have covered one aspect of this in the earlier post about brokeback entrepreneurs, simply meaning that if you get help from others, be generous and repay the favour. This way you will build you brand and the respect for your person. There are many ways of creating win-win situation with your customers/friends/colleagues, be creative and find the ways that suites the situation.

Personal Branding experts

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:54:00 +0000

Since I live and work in Sweden I tried to map out who are the experts in the field here in Sweden. Not an easy task, since they are not easy to find on the Internet. I thougth that those experts should walk the talk and position themself on the web. Anyhow, here are the ones that I found that works with personal branding or similiar activities:

Isabel Werner Runebjork, Ditt Varumarke (has written the only published book in Swedish about personal branding)

Marie Sammeli, Appareo

Jimmy Wilhemsson, Attach Information

Peter Sackemark, Drivkraften kommunikation

Anna Olin, Anna Olin Business Communications

Matts Heijbel, Storytellers

Kim Rydeheim, Rydeheim PR

Lottie Knutsson

And of course, me:

Ola Rynge, Liquidice

Internationally I have to mention the following as great resources for personal branding information:

Peter Montoya
Tom Peters
Fast Company (search for personal branding)
ReachCC
Branding personal Blog (Spanish and english)
Marca Propia (Spanish expert Andres Perez Ortega)

To what extent do your personal contacts refer to you the way you would like?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Wed, 24 May 2006 21:21:00 +0000

The other day I visited my father and helped him prepare the new beauty centre for my mother. When introduced to his friend, a business man in the area, I was presented as my fathers "youngest son". Nothing wrong in that, but frankly I am not very keen on being referred to as the "youngest". It kind of sounds like that I am inexperienced and new to whatever I am doing. It just does not sound trustworthy.

So after we where done at the centre, I asked him how he would have presented me at a business meeting if I would be an employee at his company, responsible for the business development processes. Guess what, he would not have presented me in the same way.

Do you want you family to refer to you as "my baby girl" or "my daughter who is an expert in public relations" when meeting with their friends and colleagues. Most people has a limited network and does not work to expand it very actively, so when they hear that their friends daughter is known as an expert in public relations, guess who they will call when they need to market their new product line.

By the way, this does not only concern your family. It is even more important that your friends do not present you as a "couch potato" or "party animal" to people they meet. You probably want them to describe you as a fun, driven person with social skills as well as expert knowledge.

Maybe you want to separate your personal and private life. If you are presented as a public relations expert or a social skilled person and the other person wants to discuss that topic after the introduction, spend a few minutes discussing the topic, trade business cards and kindly point out that you would love to meet to discuss the subject further over lunch some day. The other person is most likely not to keep talking about your profession.

The use of personal branding for students

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Thu, 18 May 2006 11:49:00 +0000

Are you interested in being great in your future profession? Are you confident that you can succeed, if only you had the network of a person that has been in the business for several years? Are you looking for a shortcut?

Well, if you are a student, then you are most certain to do some project work or thesis. If you can control the direction of the thesis, think of how you can do it to build your network in the areas that you want to. If for example you are thinking of being an entrepreneur, running a business in sell educations, then you could do a thesis on the structure and needs of the top companies in your region regarding educations. This way, you will get a real case to work with, you can book meeting and establish contact with the decision makers at the top companies and you will get a head start on starting your business.

Sure, that obvious, you're probably thinking. I could not agree more. So what can you do to develop the concept? Maybe you can build the connections even harder to the top companies by telling them that you would be glad to recommend them to the other top companies that you meet during the interviews. Now you start adding value to the companies, as well as your brand. The executives are probably thinking that this is a smart person which is eager to go the extra mile. Do not ask for compensation though, if you play your cards right you will get the favour returned at a later occasion.

Are YOU in control of your life?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Wed, 17 May 2006 16:24:00 +0000

The Workplace

Are you educated, working with specialized tasks? Then you are probably irreplaceable at your workplace. This is a situation that you can be happy about, but you should also know that your employer probably does not share your positive view of this. Most employer wants to transform your competencies to "structure intellectual property" so that if anything happens to you (or between you and your employer), then he/she can replace you.

Are you frightened yet? Don't be. Be proactive and learn how to use this to your favour. Talk to your supervisor and explain that you have an urge to develop your company and want to share your knowledge, and suggest that the company starts a knowledge sharing program. This way you will show that you care and that your work matters as well as you will learn from others in the program, hence develop your own competencies. Do you think that this will make you replaceable? Actually, this makes you even more valuable to the company since you get a better understanding for more processes as well as it will be harder to replace you when you have more knowledge of the company. And do not forget that while developing your skills, your value increases when looking for new positions (within and outside the company).
By now you are probably thinking that this is a way to differentiate your brand at the workplace and creating value at the same time, and guess what, you are completely right. This is an excellent example of differentiation at the workplace.

This is two different views of intellectual capital, one representing the employer and the other the employee:

Employer:
I need to convert the skills of my staff to structure capital so that I can manage if I lose personnel without loosing intellectual capital. The staff should be replaceable. This can be done by documentation and knowledge transfer between the employees.

Employee:
I need to stay unique to keep my value to my employer to make me irreplaceable. This I can do by staying one step ahead in gathering knowledge and use the knowledge to excel in my current role.

Tip of the week: Do not fight the knowledge transfer. Support it and if possible, take control over the process. Learn as much as you can and analyze how you can use the knowledge in your favour.

Help with personal branding

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Sun, 07 May 2006 08:24:00 +0000

If you just found out about personal branding or have been interested about the subject for some time, I can recommend you to read up on some information at Peter Montoya's FAQ as well as signing up for the free resources at his page. It is really good information, even if I represent a slightly different view of the personal brand that is not that focused on career, but rather as a personal development tool.

I am currently working on some material that I will present here later on. The concept in the material will be the foundation for me working with clients in the future.

Marketing research tool

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 13:16:00 +0000

I just found out how amazing the Google answer service is, it took me less than an hour to find out the market size of two applications, nicely segmented by country and all. This work would normally have taken about a week in reseach, calls and writing.

For you who does not use google answer today, here is an short explanation of the service:
"It is an extension to the conventional search - rather than doing the search themselves, users pay someone else to do the search. Customers ask questions, offer a price for an answer, and researchers answer them. Researchers are not Google employees. They are limited in number (according to Google, there are only 500 Researchers) and are screened through an application process that tests their research and communications abilities.

Once a question is answered, it remains available for anyone to browse and comment on for free."

I found that someone else already had questioned about the markets I was interested in, but even if they had not, $50 or so is not very much money.

New book on using blog for personal branding and business branding.

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:51:00 +0000

Andy Wibbels just released his new book on blogging for small businesses.

Andy points out a few really good reasons for having a company blog and I think these can be applied for personal branding purposes as well. If you want to be known as an expert in your field, ask your boss if it wouldn't be a good idea for you to communicate to the customers or suppliers through a blog.

It could even be used for attracting competence to the company. If I was to start at a company, I would love to be able to tell the level of expertise the company staff possesses before I start there. In a world where it is harder and harder to find and attract good personnel, the companies should really consider letting the employees brand themselves, and by doing so, increasing the company's attractiveness among jobseekers.

Here is an excerpt of the book Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging

Other blogs about personal branding

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 13:42:00 +0000

Other swedish blogs about: (for indexing purpose)

personal branding
branding
entrepreneurship,
entrepreneur
media
varumärken
personliga varumärken

Other blogs in Gothenburg

The brokeback entrepreneur - is that you?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:06:00 +0000

Leesa Barnes, who helps women start a new business or launch an idea on a shoestring budget writes in this article about the shoestring entrepreneur and how to avoid them.

When reading this article, I realized that there are quite a few people in my surrounding acting as a brokeback entrepreneur (even if they are not entrepreneurs) and that I am very annoyed by these persons.
Do not get me wrong, I love helping people out, but I get feed up with people steeling my time without ever thinking of giving anything back even if they could.

Tip of the day:
Do not be afraid to ask for help, but always ask what yourself what you can give back (and if possible, give back without being asked for it).

Are blogs the ultimate personal branding tool?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:51:00 +0000

Well, I don't think it is the ultimate tool since there are a lot of limitations of blogs:

Limited target group
It is only a small group of people that will read your group. To build a strong personal brand, you must reach a larger quantity of the people targeted.

Limited interaction
Only a small group (of the small group that visit the blog), will interact with you online, which makes blogging mainly a one way communication.

Limitation of the written word
Branding is a lot about feelings, and while the written word gives the opportunity to think before you speak, you will miss out on the feelings communicated by body language, face expressions and tone variations of the voice.

With this said, I still think blogging is a good tool, but the brand needs to be govern in so many other aspects.

This post is orgiginally a replay by me in a discussion on OpenBC.

Entrepreneurial brand equity

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:36:00 +0000

Some would say that the personal brand for an entrepreneur is not that important since he/she is not in a employee situation, but rather in a hiring position. This is totally wrong.
Sure the entrepreneur often is high up in the company hierarchy or running a one-man-company, but as I written before, the brand is not only for career situations. It isn't even only for professional situations.

When I started my first company, at the age of 17, a lot of persons around me looked at me not as an business man, but as an child and probably a lot of them thought that the company was not going to last for very long or that I would loose interest in running a company while aiming for higher studies. Well, I manage to keep the company running, and as the time passed, the respect for me and my business rose. The company I started was Liquidice, and it is still up and running.

It is an advantage for you if the following groups of people are appealed to your brand:

Friends/family
When running at business, you need the people close to you to understand that even if you are sometimes buried in work, you love those around you.

Colleagues
If your team doesn't believe in you, then you are in big problem. Early stage businesses are dependent on a good company culture where everyone respects and believes in the others.

Investors
How many times haven't we heard that no matter how good an idea, without the right team, no one will invest in it? This is true, and it should be this way. You have to earn a good personal brand as an entrepreneur to attract the big money.

Customers
The most important group of the four listed here are the customers. Without them, your business doesn't have a purpose. When selling for a new company, often with brand new products, it is essential to win the customers trust. If you are not a trustworthy person in the customer's eyes, it doesn't matter how good you say your product are.

Be reminded of your brand attributes

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 13:59:00 +0000

Continuing on the subject of reminding yourself to live with your brand, I found a post by William Arruda. His tip is to put your four most essential branding attributes in front of you as a reminder both for you and for your colleagues and friends.

Why don't you ask your closest friends and colleagues what they think is your four most essential brand attributes?

I generally think using notes as reminders a excellent way of keeping focus on important things (branding or not). Just be aware so that your notes don't become another must, it must feel right for you.

Are you thinking of your brand, when communicating on the Internet?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 06:19:00 +0000

Most personal development tools, including personal branding, works very well in theory, but very many has problems implementing it in every day life. You draw up plans and strategies for how you should use the tools continually, but it is hard to change old habits.

I can understand this, especially since many situations require you to act on instinct, and instinct and habits are closely connected. What I cannot understand is why so many people that are aware of their personal brand, keeps posting posts at message boards and forums on the Internet that are devastating from a brand view. These posts can be aggressive and ignorant, showing no understanding of other person's point of view. The same goes for text messaging on cell phones or instant messaging.

Not only is those moments an excellent way of building your brand since you have time to think the text over before posting it, but it also is saved for quite some time, in some cases for everybody with an Internet connection to read.

Is Big Brother watching you, or is it really Little Brother?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 07:23:00 +0000

I read a very interesting article by the Swedish writer Sigge Eklund in the last edition of the magazine Diego. He found out that people had starting to write about his whereabouts in different blogs and realized that the little brothers (the people) had taken over the role of the big brother (the government) when it comes to invading on the personal integrity.

Some may say this is scary, but as long as you aren't a public person this shouldn't be a problem. However, used the right way, it could be used as a branding tool.
Can you think of strategies for using this as a branding tool? Please post your suggestions as comments to this post.

The Ola Rynge Blog Re-opened

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:02:00 +0000

After a few months of no activity, The Rynge Blog is now re-opened. It is my intention to write here at least once or twice a week and keep you update on The Personal Branding phenomenon from my point of view. I will also include some of my thoughts and experiences in other areas.

Reading about Personal Branding

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 05:17:00 +0000

I would like to recomend Andres F. Perez Ortega site about personal branding for all of you that speak spanish. For the english spoken readers, Andres has a library-page at his site with personal branding books and a lot more.

The Site
Andres Library
Andres Blog

Is personal branding all about work?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 21:56:00 +0000

When looking on the Internet for personal branding, the most hits you will get is about applying for jobs, how to build a career etc. But can quitting your job be a step forward to your personal brand?
For me, the answer is without a doubt, yes. The personal brand is about being who you are, not about being your work.

The reason for me not writing a lot lately is because I have decided to do just that, leaving the company that I am the co-founder of. That is not an easy decision, but I feel that my role in the company has developed into something that I have hard identifying myself with.

The decision is taken and now I feel great about it. Ok, a little insecure about the future, but inspired to start something new, building my brand by acting as me, privately as well as professionally.

October is my last month at Saligus. I want to thank all the stakeholders for my time at the company, and I wish you all the best of luck!

Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:36:00 +0000

Due to heavy workload lately, I haven't been able to work very much on my personal branding. For this reason the blog hasn't been updated for a while.

I will be on vacation to mid-august, and will continue my work here after that.

I hope that you will have a great summer!

- Ola

The Personal Mission Statement

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 06:54:00 +0000

While setting goals is an important task in the personal brand strategy, there are several different ways to identify and rank the personal goals.

I started out by trying to identify what I value most in life and what my virtues are. I have taken some of the ideas from organisational management literature, books about creating mission statements in businesses and applied those on the situation of a person.

As an individual I have values and virtues, just as organisations do. The difference is that a conflict of values seldom occurs within the same person, the same way that they do organisations. This does not mean that there are no conflicts in personal values, but rather that the conflicts are in the form of prioritising between values. The problem is that this is a dynamic process, and that one value not always can be prioritised in front of the other. For example, the strive for success in profession can not always be traded for the love of the family.

This is the first draft for my personal mission statement. It will change and evolve over time, but this I think this is a fairly good ground for the future:

My mission is to be happy and to be part of making other people happy as well. I will do this by working continuously with my personal development from my basic values and virtues. The following values and virtues will guide me:

Integrity
Be clear and straightforward in the communication with others.
Standing up for my believes and opinions, even when doing so is unpopular.
Be honest and admit when I am wrong. When I have established that I am wrong, I shall tell the involved ones that is the case.
Keep my promises and don't commit myself to things that I cant keep.

Success
Continuously work with my personal development.
Always put in 100 % when I commit to something, and not commit to any thing that I feel that I won't be able to give 100 %.
Be an inspiration to others.
Be entrepreneurial and give back to the society.
Be an appreciated leader that takes initiatives, motivates and that takes action.
Be known for being successful, honest, driven person that cares about the people behind the business.

Freedom
Belive in every persons possibility to rule and change his/hers own life.
Being self confident and balancing it with a humble attitude.
Be proactive and by being that, create possibilities to be spontaneous and impulsive.

Health
Stay in shape, as well in body as in spirit
Listen to my body and act upon eventual warning signals.
Take responsibility for the place we live in (charity, the environment, not being a burden to society).

Relations
Prioritise my family and friends, as they mean the most to me
Be a support and help my fellow humans.
Make other people better by inspiring and motivating.
Be known for being a helpful person that values family, friends and relations.
Being a person that takes the time to meet with the people that matters the most.

With my mission in mind, now it is time to start thinking about what specific goals and milestones I will be using to fulfill the mission. Not everything I do can be in line with the mission as conflicts will arise, but the mission statement will guide me in the quest for hapiness and fulfillment of what I value most.

Is Your Appearance Too Self-Centered?

noreply@blogger.com (Ola) — Fri, 13 May 2005 21:24:00 +0000

On PRWeb you can read about a new tool to check if you website is too self-centered. What the tool really does is checking for words about you (me, I, we, [name], etc.) and words about the customer (you, your etc.).

Once again, a tool with little practical use. Rewriting the site to be about the customer can surely improve the appearance of the site in the eye of the customer, but what would really make a difference is considering if the offering is really what the customer wants.
No news there, all companies are reconsidering their offerings on a regular basis, but what about YOUR offering?

What is it that makes you unique in the area where you are focusing your personal brand?
When did you reconsider your offering the last time?

For me, my main focus right now is building my offerings, looking at what I want to be in say ten years from now. You probably thinking that this is a self-centered way to start off with (looking at what I want), but this is the first step in my strategy. Setting personal long term goals.

When the goals are outlined, then it is time to finding the means to reach the goals. Let's say that one of the goals is "Establishing a good reputation as an entrepreneur". One step on the way could be establishing good relationships with venture capitalists. Off course there are many more ways, but let's focus on this one for a moment.
Now we have the target group: Venture Capitalists; and even a goal when dealing with the targeted group: establishing good relationships.

At this point it is the time to start working on the offering. What is it that you can offer the target group? The possibility to invest in your ventures, contacts to other successful entrepreneurs in your network, marketing estimations in your field of expertise, etc., etc.

Doing this with every goal will give you the first draft of your Personal Brand Strategy.

I am going to create my own brand strategy starting with working on the goals this week. In this blogg I will report the progress, thought and give examples from the strategy. Comments on the plan or my way of working with personal branding are appreciated.