CIO's - Start working on your Personal Brand

According to research conducted by Harvey Nash, an IT Recruitment firm, everything.  Information World Review reports on this research in an article titled “CIOs should do more bragging” where they write:

The survey of 1,000 senior IT professionals found that the idea of the ” personal brand” of a chief information officer (CIO) was viewed as being as important as project delivery or operational effectiveness. In light of this, Harvey Nash has advised IT professionals to be strong leaders who are vocal about their achievements.

Almost two thirds of respondents said they could see a direct correlation between the IT department achieving its objectives, and its leader having a strong image and profile within the firm. Ninety per cent of senior IT executives said that any time spent on so-called brand building was essential to the success of their career.

Emphasis mine.

Looks like its time for CIO’s to learn to sell themselves and their organizations.  Time to build that personal brand (and the IT organization’s brand).

How to get started building your Brand

In a nutshell, Personal Branding should be who you are and who the world believes you to be.  Sometimes these don’t align (i.e., when people misrepresent themselves, etc), but it’s a good enough place to start for the purposes of this post (to learn more about personal branding, jump over to the Personal Branding Blog).

To build your brand, jump into the world of social media and get yourself out there. Be authentic and real in these arenas…don’t overdo it.  Speak at conferences and join industry groups.  Sell yourself and your team’s capabilities and constantly talk about your teams achievements.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on personal branding for CIO’s and technical professionals.  Would also love to hear any success (or failure) stories about CIO’s and/or technical folks building their personal brand.

Hat tip to PMThink! and Bas de Baar for links to the IWR article.

Related articles by Zemanta

• I’ve Worked VERY Hard On My Personal Brand…
• Building Your Personal Brand
• Reputation and Personal Branding
• Branded Yourself Yet? 2 Keys to Personal Branding Success
• Personal Branding And The New Rules Of Career Success