I’ll remove the mystery: It’s a powerpoint presentation about personal branding.  “From who am I, to Here’s who I AM.”  As much as this slide is basic without the accompanying presenter speaking on its points, there’s definitely a lot of great takeaways here.  I’ve always been an advocate of working on your personal image; i.e. your “brand”.  Being an expert at something is half the battle; without a clear statement about who you are and what you’re good at, your knowledge will be lost.

Take time out of your life to reflect on who you are, what you’re good at, and act consistently with it.  For example, if you think that commitment is something you would like to brand yourself as, then show commitment in everything you do.  Commit yourself to being on time, completing your work well, following through until you finish.

I’ve always felt that life is one big business pitch: it’s not about who has the best business idea; it’s about who can market their business idea the best.

Usually after taking a break from blogging, I need to reset and write one of these “It’s been a while” posts to get the ball rolling again.  It sort of mirrors the way I think and do things: I like to do a reset, reflect on what happened, and start fresh, with a new set of goals.  I guess this proves that achieving personal goals must be a low priority for me, huh? 

On to the resetting…

Life has moved insanely fast since I last blogged.  A lot of my personal life’s challenges (Ex. my girlfriend finding a job, finding an apartment, furnishing the place, transportation, etc.) has been overcome.  I’m blogging from a completely different place in a completely different time zone.  It seems like what I wrote before was foreign.  I wasn’t even sure what I was looking to achieve there.

However, I think I know what I want to achieve here.  A lot of what a PM does involves written communication skills.  Our role is mostly about filling the gaps between the developers and the customers, and completing all the other not-so-cool tasks that the devs and testers don’t have so much time for.  Well, I don’t give PMs enough credit – because the success/failure of a feature can rest at the hands of a PM.  So I’m just playfully bashing a PM because, well, I can, since I’m one.  But you, cannot.  Sorry

Anyway, you can bash me because upon writing my first document and going through several iterations with my managers on the content, one thing becomes abundantly clear: I need to improve my writing.  I need to write wherever I can and whenever I can.  Looking at where I am weak in writing, the immediate gaps are in my ability to communicate to the point, to state things in a formally, and to write meaningful sentences as opposed to fillers.  Also, I must improve my ability to convey ideas from my head onto paper. 

It has been said to me many times that a PMs legacy, after they leave a place, will forever lie in the documents, so the document that you write better be the best damn thing you ever had or the trail you leave behind will be a pile of… you get where I’m going.  So what I am trying to say is (ironic how I can’t have said what I’m trying to say earlier), I will be using this as one of the mediums to hone my writing skills.

Hmm, I feel a lot more personal in this post than I’ve ever felt writing before.  Pat on the back?  Sure, why not.