Building Your Brand in the Clouds: How to be Productive Without Wi-Fi
Flying in a tin can across country isn’t my favorite thing to do these days. But on my recent back-to-back trips to the East Coast, it happened — no Wi-Fi.
That’s right. Five hours each way at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet with no connection. “What ever will you do?” teased the flight crew. And they were right. We are so used to this “go, go, go mentality” that five hours without Wi-Fi actually stirred up a number of disgruntled passengers — myself included for a brief moment.
Then it hit me — five hours without live email, Skype or my phone blowing up every two minutes with a text or call. Remember those days? When business travel was actually, dare I say, somewhat enjoyable because you got to disconnect and disappear for a few hours? You ignored the tiny living space and just checked out. Some slept, some watched movies and others passed the time reading a novel.
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Truth is I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I fastened my seatbelt, stowed my electronics under the seat in front of me and grabbed the magazines I’ve been carrying in my briefcase for weeks — SUCCESS, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine.
In the five hours that followed on each leg I studiously read the magazines from cover to cover and guess what — it was great! Sure, you could still make the case that I was working. But the difference was I wasn’t working in my business, I was working on my business. Better yet, the takeaways from many of the articles I read offered up guidance on how to build a better business and become a better person professionally and personally.
The connected world has definitely blurred the lines between business and personal, and as a service provider you have to take note and more importantly, take action. The more you learn how to socialize your business and build a brand that’s both professional and personal to your audience, the more success you’ll achieve. Personalizing your brand builds trust, which in turn, builds healthier and longer working relationships.
Below are a couple quick reads that will provide guidance as you evolve your brand, get social and build your business. They’ll also help get you up to speed so you can understand what your marketing director, PR person and social guru are talking about as you work on, and ultimately approve, the big plan of action for 2015.
Oh and here’s another story that I came across in Fast Company. It has nothing to do with branding specifically, but it’s perfect for all of us who wear so many hats:
How productive would you be without being able to access Wi-Fi? Would you be able to make the best of it by geting work done or would you kick back and relax?
