What’s you personal brand as a data person?

And do you ever think about it, or do anything to improve it?

Ps. Your brand is not your logo, your avatar, or what ever you think your brand is, it is what people say about you.

A few things have happened this week that have me mulling personal brands.

Benjamin Rogojan posted a challenge in his Technical Freelancer Academy circle community for data consultants to go on a podcast or webinar as a guest.

Both Christopher Gambill and I offered guest slots on our podcasts, but nobody took us up on it.

(Chris has however been a guest on my podcast in an awesome episode about data engineering patterns that will come out later, and I am going to be a guest on his podcast next week to talk about T-Skills in data)

Lynda Turner is running a mentoring cohort for some of her Data Scientist masters students. I agreed to mentor one, when I checked the 5 students in the Cohort, only one had a LinkedIn profile.

I had a catchup with an ex colleague and friend, who has been out of work for a little while, but was reticent to create content and post it in Linkedin or Substack, even though they have a wealth of data knowledge I know they can share. And they used to share it when we worked together, so I know they have the chops to do it and do it well.

I have been working with somebody in the US, who has just delivered a Data Strategy for an organisation and as a result of this and their awesome skils, the organisation has asked them to take the role as Head of Data.

I caught up with Kat Greenbrook for a post book coffee (tea for Kat) and she is a masterclass in building a brand that is true to her personal self and beliefs.

Johnny Winter announced he is making the move to become an independent consultant (#Whoot!). If you ask anybody if they know Johnny they will often ask “is he the skeletor guy?”. Having met Johnny in person and worked with him on example canvas in my book, Johnny’s skeletor avatar is on brand for Johnny, don’t ask me why, but it just is, he just vibrates a certain energy of awesomness.

As I said, your brand is not your logo, your avatar, or what ever you think it your brand is, it is what people say about you.

In my latest podcast episode with Ramona C. Truta, MSc she mentions that all she hears me talk about is “Patterns”. That’s because these days all I do and think about in the data space is finding, iterating and sharing patterns.

So when is the last time you thought about your personal brand?

When is the last time you did something consciously to work on it?

I get that LinkedIn has become a sesspit of “AI” influencers and bots, and so you might not want to post there.

But if you have something valuable or interesting you can say, say it. Say it on LinkedIn, create a Substack and say it there, ask to post a guest article on somebody else’s substack.

Oh and if somebody is kind enough to offer you a guest spot on a podcast, then take the opportunity, its not an opportunity that gets offered to you often.

Whats stopping you?

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Stakeholder - “Thats not what I wanted!”
Data Team - “But thats what you asked for!”

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