Marketing yourself

Have read two recent articles on this subject:

What did you say your job was? by Venessa Harris, CILIP Gazette, 3-16 June 2010, 9
Reputation management by Rob Brown, Business Information Review, 2010, 27(1) 56-64

Some interesting thoughts:

• Venessa Harris talks about taking (informed) risks and opportunities presented by new roles
• Marketing yourself helps with sharing, networking and collaboration as well as career development
• Use online tools to build and manage a consistent identity
• - We all need to manage our own personal reputations as well as the reputations of our respective services/organisations
• There are three aspects to reputation management: building the reputation, maintaining it, and salvaging it should all go wrong

Some ideas for managing reputation:

• be visible through writing articles, presentations
• keep up to date - read (not just specialist but generalist sources), maintain personal collection of valuable information, keep up with cpd
• get involved in projects, committees, associations
• keep examples of successes
• focus on excellent customer service and on outcomes (not process)
• take time to build and maintain relationships
• keep skills fresh and learn new skills
• build on your network
• develop a good "elevator pitch"