Personal Brands Are Measured by the Quality of Their Work

October 28, 2008 at 11:22 pm | In Book Reviews, Career Development, Interview, People, Personal Branding, Success Strategies | 3 Comments

Today, I spoke with Sramana Mitra, who is a Forbes columnist, blogger and author.  She become well known because of her blog, which led her to new and exciting opportunities.  Haven’t we heard that before ;) .  We spoke about very interesting topics, including the basics of hard work, web 3.0, examples of successful entrepreneurs and tips that any entrepreneur can use.

Many entrepreneurs now are looking to make a quick hit, yet I believe there is no “overnight success.” What is your opinion on the amount of work, commitment, teamwork and determination involved with being an entrepreneur? Is patience really a virtue?

I don’t believe in overnight success either. I wrote a piece in 2001, right when the dot com bubble had crashed, called Greatness and the Gold Rush, in which I had said that luck is not a repeatable event. If you are seeking overnight success, you have to bank on luck to a great extent. While luck plays an enormous role in the lives of entrepreneurs, you cannot build anything consequential with luck alone. Thus, all those other elements you mention become important. Leadership, most of all. Work ethic. Conviction. And yes, patience. Patience is an enormous virtue in entrepreneurship. It brings you staying power.

“Things always take three times as long as you expect them to. It can be frustrating and discouraging, but if you stay with it, adjust, learn from the market, and never lose faith, you will eventually win.”

You mention “web 3.0” on your blog. How do you define it, how is it different than 2.0 and what impact with that have on the way we live and work?

My definition of Web 3.0 is a simple formula. Web 3.0 = (4C+P+VS).

I believe, Web 3.0 is all about verticalization. One day, perhaps not so far in the future, Web 3.0 will bring us “agents” or “assistants” or “bots” to do many of our “web tasks” on the Internet. It will bring huge efficiencies. I have a chapter in the book on this topic. You can publish it as an excerpt if you wish. The book also has 3 stories of entrepreneurs who I believe are good illustrative examples.

You cite many stories in your book of successful entrepreneurs. What are a few examples of standout entrepreneurs?

In product innovation, I’d say Steve Jobs is my hero. I know no one who has that kind of fundamental instinct for coming up with great products by connecting so many dots. But I also have another hero: Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, who won the Nobel Prize recently. I am inspired by Dr. Yunus’ vision and ability to bring to bear an economic model that now brings entrepreneurship to those in society who have the least. It gives them a path out of poverty. How immensely cool is that?

“In Entreprneurship lies the solution to many of the problems facing our modern world.”

How have you built your personal brand over time, before your began at Forbes and now as an author?

Within our rather small world of Silicon Valley, my brand was based on my work first as an entrepreneur, then as a consultant. I knew a lot of people, and a lot of people knew me. I did good work. That’s the first and most important piece of the brand building process – the quality of your work.

Then, once I started writing my blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy, and it became popular, it brought me in touch with a whole new set of people whom I did not know before. I developed a readership. They respect and enjoy my work. Again, on the blog also, my focus has been to produce extremely high quality work. Then I started syndicating the blog, which took the brand further. Then came Forbes. More syndicates. Now the book.

“Personal branding is taking a whole new dimension these days because of how the media industry has evolved.”

What 3-5 tips would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur?

  • First: learn the art of bootstrapping.
  • Second: go with your passion. It is very, very difficult to put in the kind of work it takes into something that doesn’t consume you completely at a “heart” level, not just “brain” level.
  • Three: Don’t be afraid of failures. Treat them as learning. Take risks in life. Not taking risks is the biggest risk. You stagnate.
  • Four: Manage your time. Prioritize. Be intelligent about the trade-offs. You cannot have it all.
  • Five: Have faith in yourself. You have no idea how powerful you are, until you start pushing and testing yourself. As you get to know yourself, you will be amazed with what you are capable of.

Good luck!

—–

Sramana Mitra has been an entrepreneur and a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley since 1994. As an entrepreneur CEO, Sramana founded 3 companies: Dais (Off-shore Software Services), Intarka (Sales Lead Generation and Qualification Software; VC: NEA) and Uuma (Online Personalized Store for selling clothes using Expert Systems software; VC: Redwood). Two of these were acquired, while the third received an acquisition offer from Ralph Lauren which the company did not accept. Sramana also writes a weekly column for Forbes and is currently authoring Entrepreneur Journeys, a series of books focused on demystifying entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur Journeys (Volume One) is now available from Amazon.com.

Today We Honor the 2008 Personal Brand Award Winners

October 28, 2008 at 11:24 am | In People, Personal Branding, award | 9 Comments

What a year it’s been for personal branding and for people creating “Me 2.0.”

Each year, I like to reward some of the standout brands by recognizing them with Personal Brand Awards. Last year, Rohit Bhargava won the gold award, which is the most coveted of all of them and this year Jeremiah Owyang was presented the 2008 gold award. A panel of judges were chosen this year and people were graded based on a few factors, such as value proposition, differentiation, and marketability. Below is a celebration for all the winners and they are also recognized in the current issue of Personal Branding Magazine, which is available for you today.

Gold Award

Jeremiah Owyang owns the #6 spot in Google for “Jeremiah” out of 18 million. He has over 15,000 blog subscribers and over 14,000 Twitter followers, with hundreds of blog posts. He’s been cited just about everywhere, including Forbes and USA Today. He probably has one of the best bio pages in the entire blogosphere and his influence is very hard to match. Bloggers link and comment on his blog as a routinely as brushing their teeth. Jeremiah is also a senior analyst at Forrester Research in social computing, so he follows social media trends as his job, thus he has found a way to monetize his passion; the goal of personal branding and life. It gives us great pleasure, after a unanimous vote, to award Jeremiah the gold personal brand award for 2008!

Jeremiah Owyang - 2008 Gold Award Winner

Silver Awards

Daniel Scocco started blogging in 2005, and the experience completely changed the way he interacted with the Internet. Through out these years he launched several successful blogs, and Daily Blog Tips is the place where he shares what he learned along the way. The blog was nominated under the “Best Web Development Blog” category on the 2007 Weblog Awards, and currently it is ranked number 29 among the most popular blogs in the world (according to Technorati).

Why he won: Daniel is certainly a fan favorite when it comes to blogging. Every day, Daniel gives precious blogging tips and strategies for beginners up to advanced bloggers. He holds one of the top spots in Technorati, yet he is a solo-blogger, which is remarkable. Daniel is certainly a go-to-guy for blogging, people trust him and he constantly rewards his community. For all this, we would like to recognize him with a silver personal brand award.

Laura Fitton has focused on reshaping society and business through ideas and information for over 15 years. She’s is a social media consultant and speaker who helps companies participating productively and proactively to be more competitive. Her clients learn to market dynamically by engaging with their audiences, listening and responding effectively to the new realities of business. Fitton writes several popular blogs, is an authority on business uses of Twitter and is in the vanguard of thinkers shaping how social media will reshape business.

Why she won: When it comes to building a powerful and recognizable brand through new communication mediums, few do it better than Laura. She is a Twitter star and as a result, she’s been cited in many of the top blogs and in mainstream media. Her face and name are synonymous with “pistachio,” In fact, she owns that word in your head! For all of this and more, we would to congratulate Laura on winning a silver personal brand award.

Bronze Awards

Jim Kukral is an award-winning blogger, speaker, author and business web coach. For over 10 years, Jim has been working with both small businesses and Fortune 500 customers to help them find success online. Jim is a graduate of The University of Akron. You can read about Jim and his many online successes by visiting www.jimkukral.com.

Why he won: Jim is a personal branding evangelist, who demonstrates his passion for all things affiliate marketing, social media and internet marketing each and every day. He communicates his brand through both video and written entries and is a common face at industry events. Jim brand thrives off of sincerity, transparency and authenticity, which is why he is receiving a bronze personal brand award!

Drew McLellan gets branding and marketing and he desperately wants you to get it too. Drew has not only survived 20 years in the advertising and marketing arena, he’s thrived in it. After working for several other agencies, including Young and Rubicam’s CMF&Z, Drew created McLellan Marketing Group in 1995. Drew is a highly sought after speaker and has given about a zillion presentations at national conferences, key note addresses, training for his peers in the profession, college students and even his daughter’s tenth grade class.

Why he won: Drew is most notably the nicest guy on the internet. Aside from being one of the most recognized and respected authorities on marketing and branding online, he is a savvy networker. Since personal branding is all about giving before receiving and not putting yourself first, Drew has become known as a connector and friend to all. For all of this, we would like to present him a bronze personal brand award!

Wendy Piersall has a long entrepreneurial career and has founded three businesses since the age of 26. Currently she is the founder of Sparkplugging, the most popular home business blog on the internet. She also writes for the Entrepreneur.com Blog Network at Inspired Business Growth – Exceptional marketing, branding and entrepreneurship. Wendy got her start in affiliate marketing as Business Development Director when she worked for Socrates.com, and continues to incorporate affiliate marketing into her blog and online business on a daily basis.

Why she won: Wendy is one of the most highly recognized female bloggers. She positioned herself early and have become a very well known face and voice in social media. When people see her face or hear the word “eMom,” they automatically think of her and that’s branding at it’s best. She was written up in the WSJ for being one of the top mommy bloggers in the world and has won a bronze personal brand award!

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