Personal Branding

While spending half of 2009 unemployed I had the opportunity to think through the currently popular exercise of “personal branding.”

This is a new thing – and yet not so new.

As I understand it, when I was a child the older kids were learning to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Era icon Timothy Leary coined the phrase in 1966 as a call to counter-culture self discovery, stating, “We seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation…”

In the next decade, as traditional race and gender roles were being further redefined, individuals were “finding themselves” in a more sober fashion. Bestsellers such as “I’m OK, You’re OK” aided this personal quest for self-identification.

The next evolution of self expression took a cue from the corporate world in the form of personal “mission statements.” Just as an organization could rally around a common mission, an individual could - after a period of examination of priorities, values and goals - set forth a declaration of personal mission. Corporate and individual mission statements could be publicized, but are intended primarily for internal guidance and motivation.

We are now in a time of “personal branding” - an outward declaration of identity, the development of which is also borrowed from corporate enterprise. Companies seek to elevate their product or service to a high level of familiarity and approval in order to achieve brand loyalty. This is done internally through training and team building and outwardly by graphically unifying all manifestations of the company’s presence. One’s personal brand also serves to order within and to present a favorable image without.

I believe that personal branding, which is the current evolution of self-identification (as opposed to the foregoing versions; “dropping out,” “finding oneself,” and declaring a “mission”) is the most outwardly focused and has great potential to engage the culture. So, how would this branding exercise apply to followers of Chist?

• What does a life that is integrated with Christ’s look like?
• What does the world experience when it encounters the brand “Christian”?
• How did the Apostles and the early Church bear this brand?
• Was the gentile expression of the Christian brand different from the initial Jewish expression of it?

Think this through Biblically and post your ideas for us to share.
I will follow up soon with some of my thoughts, bur wanted to let you go first.