Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

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My first post talked about how I got the idea to write Me 2.0 and how I confronted adversity head-on to claim my publishing deal with Kaplan. Today, I’m going to enlighten you on a few coincidences that are ironic and really set the stage for the future (and my future).

Passing the torch

Tom Peters wrote “The Brand Called You” in Fast Company Magazine on August 1st, 1997.

Wendy Marx wrote “The Young Yurks of Personal Branding” in Fast Company on August 1st, 2007. The article highlighted everything I was doing in this field, such as this blog, the launching of Personal Branding Magazine, etc.

10 years later, as we celebrated the anniversary of Tom Peter’s article, introducing personal branding to the masses, I was selected (I made my own luck, but it must have been fate) to take Tom’s visions, break them down, add in some technology (social media), and then make them consumable for Gen-Y. See back then, personal branding was an idea that few people really believed in and could apply to their own lives. As mentioned in my prior post, we were all me 1.0’s, who had to stand in back of our corporate brands. By my application of personal branding to social media, I was able to carry to torch from Peters onto you.

The publisher expected Me 2.0?

A week before I submitted my 6-page proposal to Kaplan Publishing, they were thinking about doing a book on career developing using web 2.0 tools. How funny is that? I’m a little bit more religious after hearing this from my editor. This book was obviously meant to be written by me and written now!

A millennial talking to a millennial

When it comes to differentiation for career books, this book is absolutely dynamite. A lot of books that are written about and for millennials are done by Gen-X’ers and baby boomers, but never a Gen-Y’er. Since I’m in Gen-Y I can totally relate to everything this group deals with on a regular basis, including stereotypes, etc. My voice is familiar to one of their peers, so it’s logical they will listen to the advice that flows throughout the book.

Even though this book was originally written for Gen-Y, it’s obvious that others groups can benefit greatly. This blog and my magazine have attracted just much attention from the other groups as Gen-Y.