Personal branding, I know, is a bad word in academia. I learned that over the past year. So I’ve changed the term and changed how I talk about it. My friend, JP, over at the Science of Generosity gave me a great term to us and I can’t believe how much it has helped. It’s called “Public Intellectual”.

And it works perfectly. Because all of our faculty are “intellectuals” – in fact, they all have brilliant minds and I love talking with them. That was a big draw to leaving retail and going back to my college roots here at Notre Dame. The conversations are inspiring.

But one thing they have to remember in this day and age of the internet is that the “public” part of the term is just as important. Professors are celebrities. And they are in the public whether they want to be or not. I believe most don’t even know how public they are.

I recently had a meeting with one of our more controversial professors. I won’t mention his name but he has the research to back up what he claims and I believe it’s the best thing for humanity.

But the problem he had is that he doesn’t “google” himself very much.

And a lot of interesting things came up that he didn’t know about. Which is unfortunate. Some of it was good – like a Facebook Page all about him that had over 1000 fans. Continue reading