I was in the middle of writing a new post on personal branding (how-to) when I noticed I had a trackback from Michael Goldhaber, a guy that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to this year. He’s an expert on the Attention Economy and its ramifications for your life and mine. In his response to my post, Goldhaber challenges the concept of building a personal brand, positing (rightly, perhaps) that people are not like objects. Slapping a pretty website up, handing out sexy business cards and defining a personal niche won’t do, even though it’s mighty tempting to think otherwise. People can sniff out desperation.

For the remainder of this entry, I will assume you’ve read Goldhaber’s essential piece on the Attention Economy, as well as his response to my piece on personal branding.

Let’s take a look at what Goldhaber is getting at here. He says:

The point is that by being who they are, taking their own expressive and creative impulses and thoughts seriously, all these people do not need to pay any attention to the concept of branding. They are themselves, and they reveal themselves in everything they do.

I could not agree more. What would happen if we all lived up to our fullest creative potential all the time? People would want to follow along (of course Goldhaber may counter that we only have so much attention to give, but this creates a sort of deficit/scarcity mentality. I think the decision of who/what we pay attention to is nothing new. We just have more options). I would point out that my goal in having a “personal brand” is not to be someone I’m not. It’s to become more fully who I am. I would never encourage a client or friend to cultivate “superficial characteristics” for the sake of “building a brand.” That would be counterproductive.

There will of course be disparities between the person you present to the world online or at conferences and the person your family and friends see. I think we should aim for as much consistency as possible. In much the same way we would hope have a similar experience drinking a bottle of Lindeman’s Bin 40 Merlot on two separate occasions, we’d hope to have some consistency in our personality both online and off-. But part of the fun is getting to know the slivers of difference between what’s presented and what’s “authentic” about another. And can you even figure that out about yourself?

Yesterday I sat at a cafe with a friend of mine. He’s planning to apply to Columbia University and wants to start a blog of some sort in case the admissions department wants to see “a piece of him” online. He doesn’t want to update frequently, but he wants to make sure that first impression reflects his True Self. I think this is as common a problem for folks just getting started with blogging, building a website or joining social networks as it is for seasoned web scavengers. Again, Goldhaber:

Being successful as a blogger or at any other form of attention getting is primarily a question of luck, and after that, I think, of being as fully yourself at the moment as you can be. Even this rule is not any guarantee of success, and breaking the rules, whatever they are, is often a good way to stand out.

In a nutshell, I told my friend, you want to know the secret recipe to personal branding? It’s simple. Live your life in such a way that people want to follow along!

That’s it. If you have an ugly blog, dirty business cards and halitosis, but have a cool life that you share online and in vivid prose, you can count on me subscribing to it.