

You Are a Product - nathanmarz
http://nathanmarz.com/blog/you-are-a-product.html

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mark_l_watson
Good article Nathan but I take just a slightly different view: real joy in
life is how much you help others, how many people you love, etc. (and not the
reverse of how much help you get, how many people love you, etc.) I am in my
50s, and I wish I had figured this out earlier. I have also been very
fortunate in bosses and employers treating me fairly and it has worked out
well in that I tend to work for the same people multiple times.

~~~
petercooper
_I take just a slightly different view: real joy in life is how much you help
others, how many people you love, etc. (and not the reverse of how much help
you get, how many people love you, etc.)_

To be fair to Nathan his list of things to do _were_ all about doing things
for other people (even if it ultimately benefits you too): blogging, speaking,
working on open source projects. He even said: _I think the best personal
branding activities are rooted in the actual value you can provide to others._

~~~
nathanmarz
Precisely. Like any form of marketing, there are ways to go about it that are
sleazy and there are ways to go about it that are honest. The ones that are
based on providing value to others benefit everyone the most.

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rorymarinich
Foul, foul, foul way to approach your own life and existence. Which isn't to
say it doesn't work.

A "problem", you could say, with a lot of employed people is that they insist
on seeing themselves as human beings rather than shallow, flat marketing
entities. So they are not ready to believe that people are viewing them as
two-dimensional plusses-and-minuses. They are wrong, of course, because we are
lazy people who are much more comfortable dismissing people than we are
accepting them. But I wish they weren't so wrong.

I know firsthand how easy it is to market yourself. Most people are awful at
it, or unwilling to do it, or both. Treat life as a video game and high scores
become easy to attain. Indeed, all of advertising is based on this system; we
realized a century ago that if selling's the goal, you can sacrifice nearly
everything else and make a killing.

The cost is merely your soul. It's giving up that view of yourself as an
autonomous human being with unique hopes and dreams, wants and needs. It's
deciding that you value a certain society-accepted sort of "success" more than
you value yourself. And if you really don't believe in yourself, then you find
that everything is easy. You can get a job if you're a branded huckster. You
can get laid if you're a pick-up artist. Maybe it won't mean anything but you
can have it anyway.

The real struggle, which this article doesn't mention, is this: What happens
when you find the parts of yourself that you're unwilling to sell? When your
own wants and needs contradict that optimal path? How do you manage the
difficult dilemmas that come from your conscience?

It's a question I feel some here don't value much. But I think it's the
important one. And it's the one that provokes the really genius ideas.
Curiously, focusing too much on the optimal path denies you a lot of
opportunities to be ugly and unbranded and staggeringly brilliant. The real
difference between the good and the great is that greatness almost invariably
requires a sacrifice.

As far as informing the uninformed goes, good article. The more self-aware
people are, the harder this branding bullshit is to pull off. But I dislike
that you present this without any warnings of the sacrifice you make when you
start looking at yourself as a brand. I think it's irresponsible and
potentially harmful.

~~~
petercooper
_The cost is merely your soul. It's giving up that view of yourself as an
autonomous human being with unique hopes and dreams, wants and needs. It's
deciding that you value a certain society-accepted sort of "success" more than
you value yourself. And if you really don't believe in yourself, then you find
that everything is easy. You can get a job if you're a branded huckster. You
can get laid if you're a pick-up artist. Maybe it won't mean anything but you
can have it anyway._

I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. Self promotion as a directed
activity is not always so cynical or an attempt to get more than you deserve.
It does not always involve dashing your "unique hopes and dreams." Branding is
not any more "bullshit" than, say, economics or art are.

There are people doing good, honest work who've found that by adopting some of
the principles of branding and responsible marketing to boost their public
perception, they can actually turn their work into a profitable long term
enterprise where otherwise they could not. I haven't sold my soul or done
things I didn't want to do, yet without self promotion there's no way I'd have
38k feed subscribers and a 6K strong mailing list. These things help me
realize my ambitions in an honest way.

There's a school of thought that "if you build it, they will come." Now, more
than ever, this is not true. You can toil away and do excellent work but
without getting out there, spreading the news, and working on your persona,
you'll struggle to get by. This is why, I feel, a lot of people _do_ settle
for regular, full-time jobs when they don't want to - rather than go out on a
limb and share themselves honestly with the world, they'd rather do it on a
case by case basis in their résumé.

~~~
rorymarinich
_I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. Self promotion as a directed
activity is not always so cynical or an attempt to get more than you deserve.
It does not always involve dashing your "unique hopes and dreams." Branding is
not any more "bullshit" than, say, economics or art are._

I agree. That's why I also dislike people who say things like "You are an
artist" or "You are an [economic term thingy]" too. (This last one is
theoretical but I would dislike this being said.) When you tell people that
THIS IS THE WAY THINGS ARE without including a counterhypothetical HERE'S WHY
YOU MIGHT NOT CARE ABOUT THIS, you're doing an injustice to yourself as a
writer. It's dishonest to write about a good thing without also carefully
demarcating the limits of that goodness.

"If you build it, they will come" is a terrible line that promotes antisocial
behavior and irrationality. It works well for the outsider artist who truly
does go off and build a monument, but if you're writing a "how-to" article
you're not targeting outsider artists. The real line to teach is "Friends are
the best thing ever, in business too!", and then to suggest that marketing
techniques are the best ways to make yourself visible to future friends. God
knows that's the only fame I've found worthwhile.

------
Aloisius
This is an idea that Reid Hoffman has advocated for a while now and that I
fully support. It is also the reason why I think sites like Facebook and
LinkedIn can never meet - your professional brand is something you want to
control completely.

I think that you should do product development on yourself and constantly
reevaluate if you're headed in the right direction as a product that people
want.

It sounds odd to objectify yourself, but a lot of the same techniques related
to iterative development can be readily applied to personal development.

------
CrypticSwarm
This is a very interesting perspective. Initally I felt the title was slightly
degrading. After reading the article however I feel the title is fitting and
less degrading. I like the idea of cultivating your own personal image as a
way to increase your demand. I for one have a bad tendency to put off
releasing code or writing about what I am working on. I've been meaning to
change this. I plan on using this article as a kick to start working on this
type or "personal branding". I created a HN account and posted this comment to
jump start this inititive. Thanks.

~~~
nathanmarz
I'm glad I was able to influence you in some small, positive way. It's
comments like this that give me real satisfaction as a blogger.

------
contextfree
I am not a product, I am a free man.

~~~
tomjen3
If you prefer to see it that way, we can pretend anybody cares.

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mikegreenberg
I mentioned this in your post, but will reiterate it there to initiate some
conversation around this idea.

I've been working on a solution which helps users manage their online identity
similar to how we handle this while offline. Every social network has their
own point of view on what consists of your identity. This serves only the
providers end goal of providing you a specific value.

As a (hopefully) more intuitive approach, my solution helps users organize
their identity data into a unified (and standard) model around which they can
define "roles". To the user, this feels like any other typical social network
URL aggregation service (bookmarks?) which users seem to be adopting quite
well. The added value from my solution is that they can use this new
foundation to promote specific aspects of themselves within a targeted context
both online and offline. Additionally, users will be able to receive metrics
and feedback on individual relationships to improve future interaction with
your audience.

My overall objective is to improve personal branding and advertising and see
this as a growing niche. Not sure if you all agree about the market, but
(assuming you aren't developing a custom solution specific for your use) would
you agree that identity online seems to be unnecessarily restrictive to what
is and is not representative of "you"?

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donaq
Judging by the negative/indignant comments, I think the title was unfortunate.
Reading the article, though, I don't see the OP advising people to do anything
actually degrading or unethical. Perhaps he should have clarified that only
the programmer-employee part of you is the product (at least where your
employer is concerned).

I have a slightly different perspective, which is that rather than you being
the product, your skills and time are the product, for which you are the
vendor.

~~~
petercooper
_Judging by the negative/indignant comments, I think the title was
unfortunate._

I don't. I think there's a lack of understanding what a _metaphor_ is. The
tech scene is not known for its glut of English majors, alas..

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catshirt
i don't disagree with the article, but i believe that anyone who is capable of
marketing themselves has likely drawn these conclusions already.

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dools
More accurately, your time is the product.

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bourdine
yes, selfpositioning can get some buzz among those who can hire you, but if a
person achieve is finished on selfpositioning, and, in fact - can not work, or
is able to work like everyone else, then the company still sucks and beyond,
with these empty buzz, sic.

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TotlolRon
Maybe you are. I'm not.

