Gone with the Tide

My family and I once spent two weeks in Spain, where we explored some of the charming small towns along the Costa del Sol.  One of the must-see destinations was the Museo Picasso in the Andalucian city of Malaga.  Although I confess that I still don’t “get” Picasso, there was an unmistakable aura of historical importance in each of the many gallery rooms.  Great art is like a great brand, I concluded; it is unique, unmistakable and stands the test of time. You don’t need an art degree to tell the difference between a Picasso and a Monet. 

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”  The golden arches, the Nike swoosh, that mysterious circular green siren on Starbucks cups – each connects us instantly with the unique identity of its owner.  We have come a long way from the days when a brand was a burn-scar to help us separate our cattle. 

I am old enough to remember the days when the only requirement for launching a job search was an impressive resume.  I am told that people actually studied these documents, and even made hiring decisions based on things like experience and education.  Today, serious job seekers work with a career coach, who will exhort them to “Build your brand”.  This brand is more or less unrelated to the person described in the resume, which no one reads anyway.  The implication is this; there is a completely separate existence between the public you that is being marketed, and the real, private you. 

Bestselling author Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence),  once referred to “the brand called you”,  and may have started the personal branding trend that has since been enabled by the internet.  The goal is to use Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, You Tube – everything the internet has to offer -  to set yourself  apart from the herd and thoroughly impress legions of people you don’t even know. 

Your brand, experts say, is supposed to provide some form of career insurance in these uncertain times.  When I was in high school, I spent several summers pumping gas.  I was also expected to check the oil, fill the tires with air, and wash the windows.  The polite term for this position was “service station attendant”; most referred to us as “gas pump jockeys”.  In today’s lingo, if such jobs still existed, we would be branded as “petroleum placement engineers.” 

A good personal brand is much more than just a grandiose  generalization of expertise and experience, however.  It is also critical to communicate the qualities and values that you want to be known for.  To succeed in this marketplace, you will want to be branded as creative, honest, helpful, leading-edge and driven.  The ability to walk on water (or turn it into wine) would also be a plus.

Your brand, in effect, is like a sibling that stalks you wherever you go.  It is a separate identity, an alter-ego, the Jekyll to your Hyde.  In many ways, it is remarkably similar to the person we would really like to be, that we sometimes imagine to be.  We build it by carefully accumulating the evidence that supports it, while judiciously deleting the life incidents which go against it. 

This brand is a positive, life-affirming thing, until it isn’t.  As many have discovered in these challenging economic times, a personal brand, one that has taken a lifetime to create and nurture, can be washed away in a moment.  A missed promotion, a job transfer, a layoff – the environment into which our brands have evolved and prospered is mercurial and unpredictable.  Many of us have spent a lifetime building our personal brand, only to see the rules suddenly, inexplicably, and irreversibly changed. 

Jim Denevan, unlike Pablo Picasso, will never be found in a museum.  Jim brands himself as an artist who minimizes his impact on the earth.  He accomplishes this by forming his artistic creations in the sand at low tide.  Time passes, the tide comes in, and Jim’s work is automatically recycled.  While others might stress out about the quick demise of their accomplishments, he has learned to go with the tide, so to speak. 

“(Jim’s work)…was fragile and temporary.  That thing he does with sand…transient media, but they leave a memory.  They change you,” commented Frish Brandt, director of a San Francisco gallery. The artist himself had this to say.  “It’s all about the practice and not the results in a way.  There’s really no pressure at all to have a finished result, but I think it’s not so much it’s impermanent, as that there’s as much space as I can possibly use for exploring or looking around, or finding solutions, or composing… It’s much like say if someone’s walking in the wilderness and there are no roads, they can choose to go anywhere and they’re in a constant state of freedom and movement.”

Sixteen years have passed since I walked that beach in Kaanapali at sunset, and my footprints are long gone.  I remember putting them there like it was yesterday.

Author Profile - Paul W. Smith - leader, educator, technologist, writer - has a lifelong interest in the countless ways that technology changes the course of our journey through life.  In addition to being a regular contributor to NetworkDataPedia, he maintains the website Technology for the Journey and occasionally writes for Blogcritics.  Paul has over 50 years of experience in research and advanced development for companies ranging from small startups to industry leaders.  His other passion is teaching - he is a former Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Paul holds a doctorate in Applied Mechanics from the California Institute of Technology, as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.