If you're not a Tivo user, I'm sure you've seen T-mobile's answer to Apple's answer to Windows commercials. They feature a soft voiced young lady in a dress...that's pink...and heels, conversing almost timidly with Apple's and Microsoft's representatives while regularly adjusting her posture. She stands in a pose generally found to be attractive to men...shoulders back, chest out, head tilted slightly down. 

Now...

The whole commercial has left me confused. Maybe, just maybe they're trying to attract the tween market, but the placement of the commercials has me thinking otherwise. I don't watch a ton of television, but the shows I do watch, have a typically larger male viewer-ship...Cartoon Network, SyFy Channel...lots of commercials for muscle cars and tools and video games and meat. 

I don't know when companies are going to learn that men enjoy seeing sex, but that it seldom has any real impact on their buying habits. It does, however, make them think about sex more.

Take a look at just about any industry with many competitors--colleges, hotels, sedans, accounting firms (especially accounting firms)...

The websites bend over backwards to be just like all the others. You can't identify one hotel website from another if you delete the name of the hotel (unless there's a beach or a snow-capped mountain in the background).

Sometimes, we try so hard to fit in we give consumers no choice but to seek out the cheapest. After all, if everything is the same, why not buy what's cheap and close?

How about a site that says, "Here's why we're different." And means it.

(Easy to read this and nod your head, but... what's your resume look like?)

I swear the people at The Learning Channel are monitoring my computer. This is the second time that I started writing a blog and heard someone on What Not to Wear make a point that was dead on relevant to what I was working on. This time it was Stacy.

“Work doesn’t always speak for itself.”

That’s the basic point behind personal branding. Regardless of how good you are or how talented you might be, clients are frequently drawn to you (or turned off by you) for reasons other than your work…so you better have as much control as possible over what they’re seeing.

Personal branding’s so much the rage that it’s already become played. The concept originated in the US (home of the individualist) and was snapped up by every marketing guru, social media maven, HR god and, well, everybody else, myself and friends included.

I have one friend in particular who works in photography, an industry where the business relationship is very heavily built on the personal experience, perception and preferences of the client. She’s Black. Lives in the US. She’s been building her personal brand for a few years now and has run into some issues that basically boil down to this…how well does personal branding work for minorities? This is a question that needs to be asked by anyone whose personal brand reaches a culture other than their own...and that doesn't just mean minorities in the US. It is also essential for anyone applying to jobs or doing business in foreign countries or with a large clientele that happens to be of a different culture...basically anyone functioning in the grand new global market.

Back to my friend...at first blush, one would think it would be simple…she’s in America, selling to Americans… AND she’s a female in a male dominated field…AND she’s Black in a field that’s mostly White. Everyone will know who she is! Well that’s true. As this article illustrates, sticking out is a good thing when developing a personal brand. Sticking out gets you attention...and that would be great if the point of developing a personal brand were, well, developing a personal brand. It’s not though. The point is to get you business, and it’s highly possible that what makes you stick out could work against you if not properly managed.

Personal branding, like any other form of communication, works between two participants: the sender and the receiver. In the case of visual minorities, close attention should be paid to both sides of the relationship. Since personal branding is essentially an individual relating to a group, it would seem beneficial to ask how each perceives the other. For the sake of simplicity, I want to stick with the concept of an African American building a personal brand in the US.

In this case, we have one country, and two different cultures interacting. We’re all aware of differences in musical taste, cuisine and religious practices, but looking at Hofstede’s model, White and Black Americans tend to score differently on the spectrum of individualism and collectivism. Whites leaning more toward individualism and Blacks more toward collectivism. What does this mean when the very concept of personal branding assumes and celebrates an innate appreciation of extreme individualism?

What I’ve noticed, is that collectivist cultures, like Blacks in the US, Chinese and Japanese, will be more accepting of highly individualistic displays (like personal branding) when presented by a group that’s “expected” to be individualist (like White Americans, or, in the case of the two Asian cultures, Americans in general. For example, my native Chinese friends expect me to fit an American mold and don’t acknowledge racial behavioral differences). However, when employed by one of their own, these cultures might find the US-style of personal branding (I believe that's the only style that exists right now) to be garish, excessive, untrustworthy or even a form of cultural betrayal. These cultures tend to be more comfortable with cultural archetypes than with blatant individualism. This can present a HUGE problem if you actually want your personal branding to bring in money.

All this isn’t not to say that personal branding can’t work in these cultures, but the very essence of the concept would have to be adjusted to be effective. I genuinely believe the concept can be adjusted effectively, so I'm going to do some research on the application of Hofstede's principles to cross-cultural marketing.

I've been following a series of discussions on methods of language acquisition between Steve Kaufmann and Benny, The Irish Polyglot here and here. To summarize very briefly, Steve's system, as manifested through his site, leans toward more time spent in study (not necessarily traditional academic, but individual study) before exposure to actual application of the language in conversation. Benny touts a method of almost instant and complete immersion, on which his system "Fluent in 3 Months" is based.

All that assumes though, that plans seldom gang agley. What interests me more, is that in this debate I see two people, who, like myself, have found their own paths in the journey of language learning. I'm not making any claims to know where Benny and Steve fall in the world of introversion and extraversion, but I say with relative confidence that introverts would be more drawn to Steve's methods and extraverts to Benny's...and it seems logical. Benny's methods of almost instant interaction with people feeds the extravert's energy sources as does Steve's method of more solitary focus, the introvert. But what do I want?

  If my goal is to communicate with people, I believe I would be best served by Benny’s method. After all, communication in its most basic form doesn’t require perfection…it doesn’t even really require being “good”.

 What if my goal is cultural understanding? I believe that goal is best served by Steve’s method. Culture is deeply linked to language and they are both influences on and reflections of each other.

And cultural experience? I would say Benny’s method works best. You don’t necessarily need to know all the nuances of a language to enjoy festivals and foods.

Individual bonding? Steve’s method. It takes long periods of time and a deep understanding of word choice and other elements of language to really understand an individual’s verbal expressions of self.

The effects of the two different methods? Well, my Chinese isn’t yet good enough to make a call on Steve’s Mandarin, but I do feel qualified to comment on Benny’s Spanish. I think he would have no problem communicating in Spanish and he flows quite beautifully, but one thing jumped out at me. I was reading and listening to Spanish, but it sounded as if it came from the mind of an English speaker…heavy focus on self expression…the familiar ring of the Anglophone’s belief in control of the individual on his environment. English is spoken in quite a few countries, but those traits don’t seem to waiver much. Spanish, in general, makes heavy use of reflexive verbs. Spanish speaking countries tend to see the world less as something to be controlled and more as something that happens to the human. Admittedly, the Spanish Benny speaks would be more heavily influenced by Spain, while mine would be more influenced by the Caribbean and South America (areas that have experienced more political and economic difficulty), but I believe that only accounts for a small part of his speaking style.

One goal I have when starting any language is to change my mind before anything else. To shape it through heavy listening and cultural exposure so my ideas are less expressed as an English-speaker, and more as a native. I did this innately with Spanish, but became functionally aware of it after being chided multiple times by my Mandarin speaking partner that I “would be understood, but a Chinese person wouldn’t say it that way”. I guess, as usual, it comes down to a question of where you want to go.

Extraversion (E)
I like getting my energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities. I’m excited when I’m around people and I like to energize other people. I like moving into action and making things happen. I generally feel at home in the world. I often understand a problem better when I can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say.

The following statements generally apply to me:

·     I am seen as “outgoing” or as a “people person.”

·     I feel comfortable in groups and like working in them.

·     I have a wide range of friends and know lots of people.

·     I sometimes jump too quickly into an activity and don’t allow enough time to think it over.

·     Before I start a project, I sometimes forget to stop and get clear on what I want to do and why.

Introversion (I)
I like getting my energy from dealing with the ideas, pictures, memories, and reactions that are inside my head, in my inner world. I often prefer doing things alone or with one or two people I feel comfortable with. I take time to reflect so that I have a clear idea of what I’ll be doing when I decide to act. Ideas are almost solid things for me. Sometimes I like the idea of something better than the real thing.

The following statements generally apply to me:

         ·     I am seen as “reflective” or “reserved.”

 ·     I feel comfortable being alone and like things I can do on my own.

 ·     I prefer to know just a few people well.

 ·     I sometimes spend too much time reflecting and don’t move into action quickly enough.

 ·  I sometimes forget to check with the outside world to see if my ideas really fit the experience

I was just reading this article on Howard Stern's comments about Gabourey Sidibe and to be honest, what Stern said didn't surprise me. Sure, it was racist, sexist and places incredibly confining limits on the pop-film industry. We all know that Ms. Sidibe would have a hard time getting a role as a leading lady because of her race, weight and skin color (yes, an issue separate from race). But honestly, it's Howard Stern. I really couldn't get any more upset than I already am that he has the ear of so many minds.

What really struck me was the author's finality in claiming that racism is a mental illness. As far as I was aware, neither racism, nor any other prejudice was officially diagnosable. I see two things going on: a misunderstanding of the term and knee-jerk attempts at vindication. Misunderstanding in that I doubt many people making the claim that racism is a mental illness are qualified to identify what a mental illness actually is. I say vindication because I believe the term is frequently thrown around as an attempt at a retaliatory jab against the offending party.

In the end it all amounts to carelessness and quite possibly the opposite real-world effect that the speaker most likely intends, and that's what scares me. The idea of racism as a mental illness removes the aspect of personal responsibility that I believe is so important in combating any prejudice.