Are you the star of a reality show? Do you have products or services licensed under your name? Do you aspire to either of these achievements? If your answer is no, you should not be marketing yourself or your career as a brand. I offer another essay from the Curmudgeonly Crone, continuing my rant on bad career advice floating around which, in the end, only serves those floating it. These folks arguing that we need to develop our personal brands to assure career success may, indeed, hope to launch classes and services offering us help under their personal brand. What is a brand? The dictionary defines “brand” as: 1. A type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular…

My caller ID indicated that London was on the line and I immediately felt those butterflies that seemed always present during my first year or two of being a CEO. It was early morning. VERY early morning, in fact, but I had already made the mistake of once pointing out the time on the U.S. east coast while being upbraided for being unavailable when one of these morning calls came in. “Do you know what time it is in London?” our corporate CEO had asked me. As a matter of fact I did: it was noon in London. “Do you remember that you work for a British company?” I did remember; how could I forget? “Do you think me unreasonable to…