After almost two years and 19 Personal Branding winners of the month, it’s time to shift the emphasis a little.

I started this personal branding award for two reasons.  First, it was to recognize those who are showing, or growing, their personal brand through current technologies.  Most of the recipients are (or were) bloggers.  A handful only had static websites.  A few of them extend beyond their own blog or website, and I recognize that in the post I wrote about them (see bottom of this post for the list).

The second reason I started this personal branding award was to show YOU that YOU can do this too!  It’s not just for the elite, or the early adopters of blogging or other technologies.  The strategy of developing and portraying your personal brand is a strategy that you should seriously consider.

June’s winner is one of my favorite people.  I “met” Heather Gardner on the My LinkedIn PowerForum a number of months ago.  I found her to be brash (in a good way), passionate, and anxious to help people.

So how am I shifting emphasis?  I’m not going to talk about her blog.  And I don’t think she has a static website.  Even so, she is doing an excellent job sharing her brand all over the place.  I can sum it up in one word… Heather is:

Of course, she’s married with kids, but she is very engaged in discussions online.  She is active enough in various places that many people know who she is, what she does, and what value she brings. It’s not her full-time job, so she can’t do it 8 hours a day.  Nonetheless, she’s out there.  Here are some things she’s involved in:

My LinkedIn Power Forum - Heather is quick to share, ask, give advice, participate and encourage.  Many people have benefited from her involvement there, and I’m sure she has branded herself as a very helpful, knowledgeable and resourceful recruiter (and employment expert).

Recruiting Blogs Ning network for recruiters - Very active here, sharing with and learning from her peers.  When I created my I Just Got Fired slideshow done she asked if I was going to put it on RecruitingBlogs.com, which is something I hadn’t thought of.  It showed me that it is on her mind, and she’s involved there, and guess what… there are over 9,000 recruiters on that little social network!  Powerful, and a great place to be involved.

Twitter - some think Twitter is bunk, and others like it when it isn’t down (which is too often).  Nonetheless, it’s an amazing place to develop relationships, learn about other people, and share “who you are” with your followers.  Of course, Heather is there, active, with hundreds of people following her.

LinkedIn - of course she’s on LinkedIn.  She’s not just there - she is engaged.  She has asked three questions and answered 12. How many have you asked or answered??

Blog - Yep, she has a blog, too.  I find her style and perspective to be quite insightful and engaging.  And with titles like Honey does this blog make my “BUT” look big? and “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours” Promiscuous Web 2.0, how could you not be interested?

She’s elsewhere, like Facebook.  I’m sure she’ll be other places, too.  But the point of this post, and the reason I’m recognizing her, is because it’s the next natural step to what I’ve recognized over the last almost two years of this personal branding award: being engaged.

Heather is definitely engaged.  And the relationships she’s building will benefit her for many years to come.

Heather Gardner, congratulations! You join a special group of professionals and have earned a coveted link from my monthly winner’s blogroll area (on the left), six months of premium JibberJobber (you can transfer/award this to someone else ), and a cyber-high five! And, a new addition to the prize list is the two hour (!!) minute recording of Blog Marketing 201 - 501 (part of the CEO Training for Me, Inc. - listed at $49.95 (but much more valuable than that!).

Feel free to post the You Get It award on your site!

Here are the past winners:

• September 2006 - ClickDave - my review
• October 2006 - Kent Blumberg - my review
• November 2006 - Heather Henricks - my review
• December 2006 - Adelino de Almeida - my review
• January 2007 - Rob Humphrey - my review
• January 2007 - Ariel Meadow Stallings - my review
• February 2007 - Mike Schaffner - my review
• March 2007 - Susan Johnston - my review
• April 2007 - Thomas Clifford - my review
• May 2007 - Rob Frankel - my review
• June 2007 - Trent Hamm - my review
• July 2007 - Katie Konrath - my review
• August 2007 - Robb Hecht - my review
• September 2007 - OOPS! I took this month off and didn’t realize it! Lucky me
• October 2007 - Tanya Ferrill - my review
• November 2007 - Sean O’Donnovan - my review
• December 2007 - Andy Shaindlin - my review
• January 2008 - Kate Herrick - my review
• February 2008 - John Halamka - my review
• March 2008 - another OOPS!
• April 2008 - another OOPS!
• May 2008 - Morty Schiller - my review

In March I read a post by Lucian Beebe, Director of Product Management, called Get Your Inside Connections with BusinessWeek & SimplyHired. I was simply jealous at the very cool interface that BusinessWeek offered to their readers, and immediately sent an e-mail to the address at the bottom of the post asking how we could do the same thing.

Thankfully, we got a quick reply and were able to give this functionality to YOU. How cool is that? A huge THANKS to LinkedIn (and the LinkedIn API) to help make your experience richer! Here’s how it works:

First, you get real data when you are actually logged into LinkedIn … so go login to LinkedIn! If you don’t login to LinkedIn, you’ll be prompted to, like in this picture:

Next, log into JibberJobber and go to the Company List Panel. This You can get there by clicking Companies on the main menu (or, in the image below, click on the link in the QuickView Stats for your Target Companies).

Next, on the right side of the List Panel you’ll see all the icons. You should see the little “in” icon (if you don’t, click Manage Columns and add that icon). Simply click the in icon and you’ll see a popup of who you know at that company, like this (these are the contacts that I have that have eBay in their profile… based on my connection relationship with them… so your results will look different):

Finally, you can drill down to any of the options they show… which goes to LinkedIn’s page, and shows as search results.

Again, thank you LinkedIn for opening up and allowing this type of functionality - it really does make the web a richer place!

Last night I got the umteenth e-mail asking me what I think about Naymz.

Naymz is a site that I have recommended, based on a friend’s recommendation, as a tool to help you claim more of your online profile.

Theoretically it is a site that helps your name come up on a Google search … at least, that’s the way I understood it.

I finally signed up for Naymz to check it out. I was discouraged by two things:

1. Of course, like social networking sites, they wanted me to invite all of my contacts to the network. The problem with this, in my opinion, is that if I do this, I’m strongly endorsing Naymz to my contacts, which I’m not in a position to do yet. Plus, I might recommend it to a few people, but I don’t want to do a blanket endorsement to all of my contacts (some of whom I have a strong (or weak) relationship with).
2. Just by filling out my profile I get points. Want another five points? Put what country you are in (but don’t put USA - they don’t like abbreviations)! Want another five points? Put what city you are in! Hold on… I want privacy (well, you know what I mean :p)… this idea of getting points is a yellow flag for my skeptical side.

My understanding is you get more points, which makes you more credible (ie, the more points you have, the more real/genuine/trustworthy/??? you are… ??).

Instead of discouraging anyone from using this, I’ll throw it right back at you - what do you know about Naymz? Is this something that has helped you, or that you recommend? How or why?

If you are interested in reading more about Naymz, here’s some buzz in the blogosphere:

• Liquid HR writes Naymz.com business model and context
• Favorite Online Resources writes Naymz Reputation Network
• Technology Evangelist writes A Stalker Enabled Social Network (note, his argument applies to LinkedIn, too. Read the comments on that post to figure out how to “resolve” it, if you are concerned (I’m not))
• Web 2.0 Weblog writes What The Hell Is This Naymz Thing?

The last few weeks we’ve spent quite a bit of time on my re-branding… I hope to wrap this up and bring a message back to you.

It’s no secret that I’m big on personal branding. I love personal branding. Why? Because with a strong, or appropriate, personal brand you can create pull-marketing, rather than push-marketing.

When I was in my job search I was a nobody. I was cliche, a commodity, a dime-a-dozen. No one had heard of me, and I was a perceived expert in … nothing.

I knew that I had expertise, and could bring value to the equation, but nobody knew that, nor did they know me. My job search was a lot of push-marketing, and it was painful.

The power of a personal brand changes all of that. Create your personal brand, be on-brand, let your brand permeate your market, and you’ll see pull-marketing. People will call you and want to get to know you better. Your job search will be completely different (be aware, this doesn’t happen overnight!).

In my JibberJobber re-branding exercise I’ve been amazed at the feedback. Not only have the votes and comments been powerful, I’ve received a lot of advice outside of the Survey Monkey poll (hey, one more day to vote - go do it now!).

How would YOU do the same thing for YOUR brand? A lot of times, in order to figure out what our brand is or could or should be it’s helpful to understand how we are perceived. This has been huge for me, and it could be huge for you.

It’s actually quite easy. There’s a company called Reach Communications Consulting, which helps professionals like you develop and execute your own personal branding strategy. One of the tools they offer is a 360 Personal Branding Assessment. For less than $30 you sign up and get started. The idea is many of your professional contacts get a survey about YOU, and they anonymously enter their thoughts on who you are… helping you understand how you are perceived.

Maybe you think you are a hotshot, CEO-type that excels in strategic planning and motivating the worker-bees.

And then you get your Reach 360 feedback and learn that most people think you are more reserved, very logical and detail oriented - perhaps you are better suited for a Project Management role right now.

Just knowing that empowers you to make a better decision for your career path, or can encourage you to get better training and mentoring to become that motivating CEO.

There’s power in knowing how you are perceived. If this is interesting to you, I encourage you to check out the Reach 360 program. Again, it’s less than $30. If you need help there are over 200 certified personal branding strategists in 21 countries who can help you. My JibberJobber partners who are certified can be found on my career expert partner page. The partners who are sponsoring this contest who are also Reach Personal Branding Strategists are:

• Deb Dib
• Walter Akana
• Megan Fitzgerald

If you do it, let me know how it goes! I think it’s a great investment!

Many of you may not know that I’m on Twitter. I’ve been there for quite some time. And I tweet regularly. Here’s my latest tweet:

I haven’t posted about it here for the same reason I don’t post my LinkedIn profile: I am not fishing for followers (in Twitter), connections (in LinkedIn), or friends (in Facebook).

Not that I don’t want you to follow me, I would love for you to follow me Especially if you are on Twitter (or those other networks). Interestingly enough, I share some things on Twitter that I would not share on this blog. It’s such a different platform, with such a different purpose, that it seems appropriate.

The funny thing is, I used to feel like I was cheating on you, my loyal blog reader, when I announced something on Twitter before I announced it on this blog :p How silly is that.

But I’m finally ready - if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at http://www.twitter.com/jasonalba. You can click on that link to see what I tweet about. You may be surprised to find more silly, personal stuff there. That’s just the nature of Twitter.

Have I found business value out of Twitter? Absolutely.

Have I found people enhancing their personal brand on Twitter? Without a doubt.

Is Twitter for everyone? No way.

But it’s good for me. One more question…

Will there be a “I’m on Twitter — Now What???” book? I’m not saying

Today I’m announce a new, special part of the JibberJobber offerings. I’m a firm believer in You, Inc. and the care that we all need to take with our own career management. You are the CEO of You, Inc. and I want to help with your training and continuing education.

Over the last two years I’ve learned a lot. None of it has really come easy, but I tell people “you can do a lot with fourteen hour days!” Whether you are busy with a job search, your family or your job, you probably don’t have the luxury of spending as much time as I have learning things the hard way.

I’m now ready to share certain topics with you - topics that I’ve been sharing in webinars with various associations and organizations. These webinars are meant to help you cut through the fluff and walk away with knowledge and tools.

Each of the webinars will be $49.95 per person (or $24.95 per person, if you have a one-year-or-more premium upgrade). You can get more details on this page. Here is the schedule of webinar presentations through June:

Blog Marketing 201 - 501

February 14 1pm MST
February 26 6pm MST

Hands on LinkedIn

March 6 1pm MST
March 18 6pm MST

Write your Book!

April 3 1pm MST
April 21 6pm MST

Hands on Facebook

May 8 1pm MST
May 20 6pm MST

LinkedIn for Companies

June 5 1pm MST
June 17 6pm MST

For detailed information, or to sign up for a webinar, click here. If you have any questions please let me know.

A couple of months ago I started to get some e-mails from friends saying “you need to get on Stan Relihan’s The Connections Show.”

Then, I jealously read that my good friend and mentor (he doesn’t know he’s my mentor) Vincent Wright was a guest on The Connections Show (listen here).

I made a note to figure out how to get in touch with Stan and see if I could be a guest.

Before I got to it, however, I got an e-mail from Stan, asking if I would be able to be on his show!

Here’s a link to the 22 minute recording we did. I’m surprised at the comments on this post, and flattered that people took so much away from the interview.

If you are a digger, please go digg Stan’s show. Not the interview with me, but his entire show. Right now he is in third place, ahead of BusinessWeek, Wired News, NPR, Wallstrip and other popular shows.

Thanks for the opportunity, Stan!

Ted Demopoulos and I have been e-mailing for a few months now. He recently e-mailed me to let me know that he is recommending my LinkedIn book I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? in his new eBook called Effective Internet Presence.

I checked out this book on personal branding and was impressed, and knew that I should share it with you. It’s a simple, free download… you can go to his website, Effective Internet Presence, or you can just click here to download it.

This eBook has a very casual style but it’s thirty nine pages are packed full of information that you should be interested in.

The premise of the book is something like (in my own words) “what happens when people Google your name?” Or your product, or your service, or brand, or company name? For a quick and fun test, try this free online identity calculator by the folks behind Career Distinction (the bible of personal branding).

If you get no results, it’s probably not good.

If you get negative results, it’s definitely not good.

If you get results from someone that has the same name as you do, that’s not necessarily good. This is the same issue that Bill Arruda (aka, William Arruda), Scott Allen, and David Scott (aka, David Meerman Scott) have/had. I kind of have it a tiny bit with Jessica Alba, but she’s so well known that it doesn’t affect my brand.

Anyway, Ted Demopoulos has put together a very easy read full of resources that you should know about, and ideas for your strategy. I even picked up two different web resources that I’m going to investigate further, based on his recommendations.

What are you waiting for? Go check it out! You’ll have it read in thirty minutes!

Last year I started experimenting with live webinars to help people understand how to use JibberJobber. While we mostly went over the general “let’s get started” features there was at least one call devoted entirely to more advanced features. This live training is now a mainstay!

I always go by the audience needs, so if you have any questions come join us! Even if you haven’t signed up yet, it’s a great way to easily understand the breadth and depth of JibberJobber, which has been called the “gold standard” in career technology.

The schedule, and login information, is always found from this blog by clicking on Pages (at the top, on the main menu), then Free Webinar! Here is the schedule through March:

• January 23 (Wednesday) - noon EST (9am PST) this morning!
• February 13 (Wednesday) - noon EST (9am PST)
• February 27 (Wednesday) - noon EST (9am PST)
• March 12 (Wednesday) - noon EST (9am PST)
• March 26 (Wednesday) - noon EST (9am PST)

To access the webinar portion just click on this link, and then call the following number (this information is available on the Free Webinar page):

(712) 432-9998, access code 370520#

So there you go, whether you have signed up for JibberJobber or not, whether you are a job seeker, networker, recruiter, business owner or whatever, feel free to jump on and see what it’s all about!

Remember, if none of these dates/times work for you, you can always access the video tutorials here.

Progress on I’m on Facebook — Now What??? has been humming along. Jesse and I have sent the pre-edited book to over 80 bloggers and journalists, and the feedback we have received is very helpful. Most of it has been extremely positive, and a few people have replied with some major changes but very helpful all the same. I am nervous to dive in and change a bunch of stuff this late in the game, but will make some changes for sure.

We almost have a cover designed, which should be pretty cool. It’s really interesting how many details and decisions go into the book, and I’m expecting to get feedback on even the most minute detail. Fortunately the decision-making team communicates very well and we are able to differentiate between small issues and large issues.

We’ve also received the foreword from Lee Lorenzen, who is the first Facebook-only VC and a very big name in the Facebook space, created the book’s blog, and a “Page” that you can join as a fan (to keep up to date on the book progress).

The biggest question we still get is the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn, as far as how you would use them. Many people say “I use LinkedIn for professional networking and Facebook for family and social networking.” Not much of an argument there… how in the world would you do “family networking” on LinkedIn???

But there is definitely a compelling reason to learn about how Facebook can help you professionally, from You, Inc. to your role as an employee to your own business venture… Facebook has a lot to offer. And that’s what this book is all about.

The editor just sent me a revision in the Table of Contents, but here’s the old one, with the gist of what we’re writing about:

Foreword - Lee Lorenzen
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Getting Started
Chapter 2 - Getting Involved
Chapter 3 - Commonly Asked Questions
Chapter 4 - Applications
Chapter 5 - Privacy
Chapter 6 - Your Facebook Strategy
Chapter 7 - Facebook for Businesses
Chapter 8 - Facebook No-no’s
Chapter 9 - Additional Resources
Conclusion
Appendix

More information soon, once the cover is finalized we’ll have a page to pre-order the ebook and the hard copy at discounted rates!