

Personal Branding Without Being a Douche - jasonshen
http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/ive-heard-great-things-about-you-a-nondouchey-guide-to-personal-branding-and-self-promotion/

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davesims
Interesting -- this goes straight to some concerns I had about Zach's whole
'brand' and 'persona' response to the (overblown) controversy on swearing. I
agree with most of what Jason says here.

But I still have an issue with the notion of my character and reputation being
tied to the language of 'brand'. I think it cedes too much ground to the
encroachment of marketing into some of the essential parts of human
interaction, reducing what we present and edit of ourselves to mere marketing.

Contrast with _why. Here's a guy who clearly edited himself in a radical way,
created a persona, built a following, but it would be hard for me to see _why
as a 'brand', because the content of his persona was focused on creativity and
his contributions to the community, not his marketability.

I totally get that we're all always editing ourselves to present a certain
point of view of who we are, from the profile pics we use on
Twitter/FB/LinkedIn, to the style we use in our tweets, speeches,
presentations, etc. -- it's impossible to eliminate that from our interactions
publicly and online.

But do we have to concede that much ground to the business side of things that
we call it "branding"? I hope we have different ways of tying our public
selves to a kind of integrity that goes beyond the ethics of commerce, to
something deeper.

Commerce is such a powerful force in our everyday lives anyway, can we find a
broader language to describe this process than something that tends to reduce
us to products?

~~~
jasonshen
Thanks for the thoughts.

I used the word "personal branding" mostly because it is the established term
that covers what I'm talking about. But I agree with your point in that it
sort of turns people into products.

I guess a larger point I should have made in the blog post and that I did in
the talk is this:

Your name has a meaning to people, even if you choose to not think about it.
Recognizing that what people think / feel when considering "you" is something
I want to encourage. Shaping your reputation/brand/name into something
positive and making it a useful tool for achieving your goals is, IMO, a
worthwhile endeavor.

~~~
davesims
Hi Jason, thanks for responding. I liked your post, and I appreciate that you
didn't coin the term -- 'personal branding' has been around a long time.

But the idea of 'Public Rhetoric' has been around far longer, and that's what
we're really talking about -- the connection between what I present in public
speech or other forum, to a truth about myself -- the 'ethos' of rhetoric.

It's an ancient problem, and the concern I have with propagating the language
of 'branding' is that it pulls it too close to the ethics of Mad Men for my
taste. There are other ways to, ahem, spin this I think.

The intent of our public rhetoric should be more than just commerce or
marketability, as you demonstrate with the charity you started at Stanford.

But I see a problem with the language of 'branding' so close to the idea of
'charity.' It raises a question of ethos -- why are you doing this? For self-
promotion or for some other human good?

Of course this has always been a problem, and language can always be used to
obscure our true motives. But declaring something as 'branding' outright seems
to me to subtly give too much license to our more selfish intents. I'd rather
we still talk about Speech or Rhetoric or Reputation than Branding, if for no
other reason than it at least creates some distance between commerce and
altruism.

And now I've taken this conversation into Aristotelian waters way outside my
pay grade...

~~~
jasonshen
Hey Dave,

It's great to have a discussion about this. I think the concern that people
have with businesses is that profit is a rather cold motive. We wonder if at
the core of every corporation is an empty vessel, an icy void, a dispassionate
pursuit of the bigger bottom line.

As I mentioned in the post, I think the best brands (and businesses) have a
mission that is higher than profit. Of course, some might dispute that claim
as simply another cold-hearted way to make a buck, but from what we know about
Steve Jobs, it seems that he really saw Apple as a vehicle for delivering
insanely great products to the world.

And that's why their advertising and marketing resonates so much with us.

I think of it like this: brand -> reputation -> character -> legacy. You've
got to work backward from what you want your legacy to be. The usefulness of
calling "branding" is that we can use other words/tools/strategies from
business and marketing in an analogous way.

Business can be more than "just commerce" in my opinion. But yes, we have to
watch our words because they suggest our intent. Would love to hear more about
your thoughts on this.

Jason

~~~
davesims
I completely agree that business can be more than just commerce. I actually
love my current gig for that very reason. I would love it if companies that
value local commerce and community responsibility could co-opt our typical
idea of business back into something bigger.

But language tends to go the way of our cultural stories, and the question
here is, which narrative about business is dominant -- the narrative of
disconnected douchey 1-percenters or the more benevolent narrative put out
there by companies like American Apparel?

Unfortunately, it would seem that the former is what our society tends to
associate with 'business' and 'branding', and companies like American Apparel
(assuming you, er, buy into their whole story of championing local industry)
haven't turned that tide. Maybe someday. For now, imo, Mad Men still rule the
day.

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tycho77
The throwaway paragraph about fashion holds much truth, I have found. I
decided a year ago to learn how that stuff works. I can't even begin to list
the benefits that come with it - it isn't only women that like you more, but
men are more likely to take you seriously if you aren't walking around in
jeans and a t shirt.

Here's a good site to get started:

<http://www.magnificentbastard.com/>

Lots of good advice, I agree with most of it. A more important step is to head
to a high-end clothing store, the type that sticks a salesperson on everyone
who walks through the door. Yes, the clothing is expensive, but in conjunction
with the professional advice it is very much worth it.

~~~
jasonshen
Hey tycho77 - welcome to HN and thanks for the tip. This site looks really
useful.

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joelrunyon
I was at DefragCon the other day and James Altucher had a quote based on his
experience with personal branding.

"Anytime you hear someone say 'Personal Branding' it means 'I'm going to lie
to you and steal all your money'"

I thought it was pretty spot on based on my experiences with all the people
that are so gung-ho about the buzzwords. :)

~~~
jasonshen
Thanks for the love Joel... =)

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njharman
Calling it personal branding instead of reputation is high douchebaggery.

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bmahmood
Very true: "You have to stand up for yourself and sometimes that means being a
bit more aggressive than you normally are. This is the way of the world."

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gxs
I'm not one to lunge personal insults around - but is it bad that when I read
the title "Personal Branding Without Being a Douche", the first site I thought
of that could use help in this department is the site below?

sebastianmarshall.com

Then again, I did think of it, so maybe they're doing something right.

~~~
jasonshen
I'm actually friends with Sebastian. But before we knew each other personally,
definitely admired his blog from afar. His style is not for everyone, but I
think his content is really really good.

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georgieporgie
Isn't this "100 pushups" and "cold showers" guy? Um...

~~~
kristofferR
Yeah, it is. So? Why would doing personal experiments to improve yourself be a
negative for personal branding?

Some of his experiments may be considered silly by some people, but that
doesn't take away from the fact that he is working on becoming the best
version of himself he can be - an admirable mission everyone should strive to
have, but few unfortunately do.

I don't know Jason, but he seems like a really cool guy with a lot of drive,
dreams and ambition.

~~~
georgieporgie
Cold showers aren't self improvement. It's the most contrived and limited form
of self-punishment I can think of. Much of the developing world showers this
way all the time.

Promoting pectoral-shortening exercises among an audience of people who a)
largely do not understand how to exercise their bodies in a balanced way and
b) spend most of their days hunched or slouching in front of a computer, is
not self-improvement. It's sophomoric bragging, and it's irresponsible.

How can I put this? Everything he uses to self-promote seems like he set a
goal which sounds impressive (e.g. "100 pushups"), but actually requires a
fairly short period of commitment to achieve. It's as if he's molding his
entire life for SEO, blog hits, and self-promotion, rather than achievement
and improvement. To me, that's douchey.

~~~
jasonshen
Thanks for your thoughts.

I wrote about my personal experience with cold showers and how I feel they
have improved my life. This is an experiment with an N of 1. Most notably:

"It also helps me temper my emotional responses to things. I no longer have
the panicky feeling that a ton cold water on your skin gives you for more than
a few seconds when I take my cold showers – I’ve trained myself to calm down
and overcome this natural response. And I’ve noticed this ability to temper my
response overlap into other areas of my life"

If you haven't tried taking cold showers regularly you might be surprised by
the results.

I never posted the 100 pushups article on HN so I'm not sure what you mean
about being irresponsibly promoting pushups.

I agree that the 100 pushups requires a relatively short period of commitment.
Yet it seems impressive. Which is why in my post I wrote:

"It turns out, with about 4-6 weeks of pushup training 3x a week (~10 mins per
session), you can do build your capacity to do something rather difficult: 100
pushups in a row."

The point of that post was not to show off how awesome I am, but to encourage
people to go after goals that seem difficult because with consistent effort,
large goals can be conquered.

I find it unfortunate that my life comes across to you as molded for SEO and
blog hits as that is not my intention. As I state in this post and in my about
section, I write to provide resources to help others.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Dude, you're getting a fair amount of hate on this thread and I commend you
for the way you handle it. Every time someone comes along knocking you, you
just respond with "Thanks for your thoughts" then go on to explain yourself.
You can't say you don't practice what you preach.

In all honesty, this is the only post of yours I've ever read. I might dig in
further and decide that I think you really _are_ a douche. I don't know. But
so far I like your style. Especially how you handle all the negativity.

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logjam
"My blog is my public face to the world and if I post something horribly
offensive here, my brand goes with it."

Friendly advice: folks might be more inclined to take your advice and your
"brand" as something actually post-adolescent if your public face to the world
consisted of choices of words other than your odd, _repeated_ use of variants
of the word "douche" in your writing and in the headline you self-posted here
on HN....not amusing and actually offensive to many women _and_ men.

~~~
jasonshen
Thanks for the advice. I recognize that not everyone will jive with my style
or choice of words, but similar to Zach Holman's use of swear words, I chose
to pick the word that I feel works best.

I think most people are familiar with the term "douche" or "douchebag" and
that it's usage is similar to "bastard" -- very far removed from the original
meaning. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone but like I mention with the
case study of Amit - it's pretty much impossible to please everyone.

~~~
pamelafox
There's actually an entire podcast on "Savage Love" dedicated to the subject
of whether "douchebag" is offensive to women. Many women called in and said
that since douching has been discovered to be harmful to the vagina, it's good
that douchebag is used as an insult, because it reinforces that douching is a
bad thing, hopefully discouraging women from partaking in it.

Doesn't mean that people won't be offended by it still, but an interesting way
to think about it.

~~~
jasonshen
Really interesting. I could see an argument being made there. I think the
bigger thing is that douche is relatively disconnected with women. It's not as
direct as, for instance, calling someone a "pussy", which is more directly
negative toward females.

