Assignment #3 - Self Brand

To start, the two readings (Forbes and Fast Company) were by far the most interesting and impactful readings for me thus far. I say this because they were simple, very accurate with what I relate to great leaders and they simply make a lot of sense. Part of this for me personally is reflecting the fact that my wife is the VP for two small businesses which were created and owned by a young entrepreneur who really has mastered this area of not only business branding but self-branding as well. Much of this is brought home to me through daily business related conversations which I often relate to both myself as an educator, myself as a future administrator, and my career in education as a “business”.

With this being said, the main thing that stuck out to me from the Fast Company article was that when you take on a new leadership role and are relying heavily on self-branding, you have to start thinking differently about yourself than you have before. You need to see yourself as an asset, a leader, as someone who is no longer following others, but as someone who needs to get others to buy into you in order for them to start following you. This article talks about how you can stand out, why this is important and where this will take you should you do this successfully.

Thinking about my career and myself differently, is definitely what I can do in the immediate future in order to start building and growing my professional brand. As an educator, I can start looking at things I experience professionally every single day with a different lens which will allow me to start to start improving myself, start standing out from everyone else, and to start building my brand.

The second article, Forbes, presented some very clear and simple steps you can take in order to start thinking about how to build your own personal brand. The thing I really liked about these steps is that they so easily carry over to such a wide range of careers, situations, and types of people. These steps were created in a way that anybody can utilize them in order to accomplish the goal they have set forth for themselves which was mentioned in the first article; thinking about yourself differently in order to stand out. Several of the five steps relate to you staying true to who you are and being honest with yourself. I feel that this is vital in order for presenting yourself to others in a way that will force them to have no choice but to follow you.

I want others to view me as an honest and straightforward leader. I feel that by utilizing the five steps presented in Forbes, and focusing specifically on staying true to who you are while building your brand will allow others to not only trust you, but to be inspired and willing to buy into you.

Lastly, in order to build your brand, you have to utilize tools to not only build your brand, but to maintain your brand. I will definitely start to learn more about social media and utilize those in a manner which will meet the needs of my brand, but will focus on utilizing the tools that are true to me and natural to who I am. The number one tool I have in my professional tool belt that is my go to tool, is being personable and building a “quick” and natural rapport with people. As a leader, I need to do all the “other stuff” that helps build my brand, but my number one tool is interacting and caring about people and this is how I will best be able to build and advance my school’s brand.

I love working remotely in the Tropics of Vancouver!!

Assignment #2

I am in a good and bad situation in regards to the steps I can immediately take in order to improve my digital leadership. The disadvantage I currently have is that I have a lot to learn in regards to utilizing digital leadership due to the fact that I have never been involved in Twitter, Facebook, and have very little experience with other forms of social media. However, this is also why the steps I need to take are pretty easy to pinpoint. I simply need to start getting more involved with the various forms of digital media and incorporate them into my life and become familiar with them in order to fully maximize them down the road.  

There are many cautions that relate to me personally, but also should be clearly examined by anyone in a leadership role when trying to move forward with utilizing digital leadership within an organization. For me, the very first caution would be to go slow and not get overwhelmed by the vast amount of possible directions to take. This relates to the NETS-A step 4 c,d, and e because for me, a novice on this topic, it is important to surround myself with people who can help incorporate my vision and guide me through the process while at the same time enhancing the skills of both myself and my staff. 

The second caution I feel is vital to reflect on is to make sure to have a clear purpose for everything you do. Don't just do something because you feel it is the right thing to do or because everyone else is doing it. Actually have a reason for it. Understand the "why" before you create the "how" and the "what". 

Both of the above cautions relate well to the seven pillars of digital leadership. My first caution which talked about moving slowly and fully understanding the role of social media prior to going a specific direction related closely to pillar six (re-envisioning earning spaces and environment). This discusses how leaders need to build sustainable change AFTER they have a basic understanding. I think this is vital in school success at any level. My second caution, having a clear purpose for digital leadership relates closely to the other six pillars. Each of them focus on a different aspect and purpose of digital media in order to enhance your organization. Leaders should have a specific goal, plan, system and direction for each of those six pillars prior to moving forward in order to maximize their worth, effectiveness, and ability to be intertwined in a sustainable manner. 

Assignment #1

I really enjoyed today’s class on several levels. First, it was a great way to start my Master’s program with great people and small numbers which allows a conversational approach and a down to earth Professor with real life experience to draw upon. Secondly, the subject area of technology and digital leadership is something that I feel I am comfortable with, but at the same time, have a lot of growth opportunity before I feel I am fluent in this “language”. In addition to this, the thing I found most fascinating about today was the fact that the first hour or so of class I kept naturally trying to approach our conversation and topics from the teacher perspective in regards to how this information can apply to my classroom and to my students simply because this has been my approach for so long.. Although, everything we went over today, and will learn about in the future, can be applied to the classroom, the focus is on how it can be applied as an administrator. This is a new realm of focus I will need to get used to. I am definitely excited for this shift of thinking, but at the same time, applying what I learn to my classroom in the short term, with the added benefit of a little bit different higher level perspective.

One takeaway from the articles is that digital immigrants (many current educators) can learn new ways of doing things in order to reach students, but a very common response to this, is with so many new standards which are changing so often, state tests, and other demands, the time that is needed to change your digital language is not provided, not available, or not willing to be used in order to grow as an educator. There is definitely a middle option between trying to learn everything all at once and refusing to learn a new approach at all, but so many are not willing to take this middle road. I feel this connects to NETS A Standard 5 b, c, d because in schools today, there is a wide range of educators and administrators at varying levels of digital understanding and application and in many cases, staff who are “fluent” in digital languages model new methods to those of us who are not in order to help us improve our digital language in a safe, legal, and ethical manner in a collaborative environment.

I also feel it is our job as leaders to balance the new way of digital thinkers and incorporate things that work well for them with the “old” ways of doing things. Just as doing everything digitally or doing everything the old school way won’t work, it is important to fuse these two methods together in a way that enhances student learning with things that are still important and valuable in our society that have been done for many years. One example of this is that in the article written by Marc Prensky it touched on how many digital age students want, prefer, and need instant feedback and results. While this is beneficial and expected in many digital platforms, there are often times in an academic and professional setting where this need is not plausible. This connects with NETSA Standard 5d by providing access and methods of doing things that are differentiated and suitable to all learning styles.

Self Assessment Results