The Future of Your Career Brand in Exponential Times

I just posted a new video on my Facebook page that was produced by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman – a provocative YouTube video called,  ”Did You Know? ” proving the obvious, that we live in exponential times; the video highlights the shifting of educational leadership to China and India, the blinding speed of the technical evolution, the explosion of human interaction and adoption spawned by the internet, and, well, much more interesting, provoking, and somewhat scary stuff.

The takeaway for this blog?  It’s some of these statements off the video:

• The top jobs of 2010 didn’t exist in 2004
• The US Department of Labor estimates that learners will have had 10 to 14 jobs by age 38
• That 1in 4 people have been with their company less than a year and 1 in 2 have been with their company less than 5 years

OK.  Well then.

What’s shaping up for us all in a global workforce may be more provocative, exciting, and challenging than we ever imagined in terms of life and career management.  How do you stay on top of your game in a career when there is so much happening so quickly?  How do you stay connected and smartly branded in an always on, online world?    I’m going to make the case for two things at once, starting with this blog series…the case for a sabbatical strategy and the case for developing connected leadership skills; and how they shake hands.

Seeing the crazy speed of information and technology racing to their future plateau, it’s not hard to imagine a world where formal job descriptions become much less relevant and in their place is the navigation of a sophisticated, professional delivery brand by individuals that know how to connect and “stay connected”.   Building a killer professional delivery brand of the future will mean:

• You are someone with a wide or at least interesting range of life experiences that prove your pliability to take on all kinds of roles in different corporate venues
• That you have a proven substance around your authenticity in your leadership style that comes through when people have their customer experience with your brand as a professional
• That basic career management questions change from, “What job can I get hired for…” to “What role/expertise am I a viable steward for in an industry. How do I creatively build my viability to this brand?”
• All of these combined mean, you can jump into different situations, learn, adapt but at the same time deliver consistently on leadership capability each time…

The professional delivery brand of the future will most likely mean we will live a blended life of mixing life experiences with work.  Social engineering sites like, Facebook, will change the dynamic of how we interact with work groups (not just friends).  The ease and opportunity to build and maintain an online brand presence of your identity will be a must have not a nice to have.  And ultimately, the lines between life and work will become a deeper shade of grey than we’ve experienced in our collective history.  So I say, take control of your lines – make them interesting and meaningful to you.

Step one is not being a victim of change but seizing downsizing as a massive opportunity.  Creating a meaningful sabbatical strategy means, “Ok this is what I want to explore in my life. I’m going to figure out how to do it – fit it into the scheme in some way.”   It also means, “ok, my employer is downsizing, I’m going to opt out to go after this next avenue in my development.”

Building a professional brand means opening doors for wider life experiences that can translate into valuable business roles as leaders in the future.  You’re ability to successfully translate a life experience – one you gain on a sabbatical event – is dependent on knowing yourself as a connected leader.     To get behind what it means to be a connected leader…. stay tune for my next blog.

Hats off to Elizabeth and Barbara for once again being innovators.

You can find me on www.connextionpoint.com – the leadership site and my life management site specific to engaging positivity www.makepeacewithnow.com