Michael Goldhaber, writing in Wired, said, If there is nothing very
special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself you won't
get noticed and that increasingly means you won't get paid much either.
In times past you could be obscure yet secure -- now that's much harder.
Again: the white collar job as now configured is doomed. Soon.
(Downsizing in the nineties will look like small change.) So what's the
trick? There's only one: distinction. Or as we call it, turning yourself
into a brand . . . Brand You.
A brand is nothing more than a sign of distinction. Right? Nike.
Starbucks. Martha Stewart. The point (again): that's not the way we've
thought about white collar workers--ourselves--over the past century.
The bureaucrat on the finance staff is de facto faceless, plugging away,
passing papers.
But now, in our view, she is born again, transformed from bureaucrat to
the new star. She works in a professional service firm and works on
projects that she'll be able to brag about years from now.
I call her/him the New American Professional, CEO of Me Inc. (even if Me
Inc. is currently on someone's payroll) and, of course, of Brand You.
Step #1 in the model was the organization . . .a department turned into
PSF 1.0. Step #2 is the individual . . .reborn as Brand You.
In 50 essential points, Tom Peters shows how to be committed to your
craft, choose the right projects, how to improve networking, why you
need to think fun is cool, and why it's important to piss some people
off. He will enable you to turn yourself into an important and
distinctive commodity. In short, he will show you how to turn yourself
into . . . Brand You.
See also the other 50List titles in the Reinventing Work series by Tom
Peters -- The Project50 and The Professional Service
Firm50 -- for additional information on how to make an impact in the
professional world.
