follow me

Kristin Magette

Embracing uncommon wellness.

Bring It: Own your authority

by Filed Under: Growth & change, Personal branding, Thoughtful work 2 Comments

“People aren’t going to read this book because they’re interested in your school district. They’re going to read it because you are an expert in this subject, and they want to learn what you know. You have authority on this topic, and you need to own it.”

These were the words of a good friend who met me for lunch last spring, as I was thick in the middle of writing a book. She worked for a time in book publishing, so this was my chance to learn how to keep the project on the fast track with my publisher, as well as an opportunity to pick her brain on a few passages I’d written that were giving me problems.

Writing is just what I do — virtually every day, in fact. I write for work because of my job, and I write for pleasure because I enjoy it. I didn’t need help with convention, but the point of view I needed to express was still falling short. I needed to find my “I’m writing a book” voice. I would flirt with it here and there, but it still wasn’t cohesive and clear. With more than half of my manuscript written before our conversation over Subway sandwiches, it clicked: I needed to find my “expert” voice. I needed to own my authority.

I went back through my manuscript with an editor’s eye, and page by page, the language changed. Edit by edit, the changes were subtle. But as the sentences and paragraphs shifted, so did my mindset. My voice evolved from casual storyteller to focused author with the confidence of both expertise and experience.

Over the last 10 years or so, I have slowly uncovered more of who I am as a professional. I’ve discovered my strengths and weaknesses through experiences, interactions with coworkers and abundant opportunities for self reflection. (When your behind-the-scenes work is largely played out on a public stage, it’s hard not to reflect on what comes easily — and what doesn’t.)

Owning my authority means acknowledging the value of those things — the skills, insight, point of view — that I bring to work every day because they matter.

This perspective is powerful, especially working as a transplant in a specialized workplace. For those of us serving as communication professionals in other fields — education, banking, social service, retail, government — we will always be outsiders, to a certain degree. Lacking the expertise and experience of a teacher or principal, the authority I have in this system can be obscured. But it is there.

Learning to own your authority involves a few simple — and important — standards. Try them on for yourself…

  • I have skills and expertise that can directly influence the progress and well being of my organization.
  • My point of view is valuable, even if (I dare say because) my skill set is different from my coworkers.
  • I can confidently explain what I do, why I do it, and why it matters to someone else.

Whether writing a book, attending a meeting or responding to an e-mail, the ownership of authority is not arrogance, self-righteousness or bravado. Instead, it is a simple, quiet confidence that my voice — your voice —  makes a genuine difference — and you’re ready to bring it.

Own Your Authority

Commas, candy and other life lessons from a book deal

by Filed Under: Embracing Social Media: A Practical Guide to Manage Risk and Leverage Opportunity, Growth & change 4 Comments

I’ve always considered myself a lucky person. When things go wrong — and they do for me as much as anyone — I think to myself, Wow, that’s weird that my car battery died / my kid threw up / my e-mail got hacked. I’m usually such a lucky person. When I have bad luck, I happily file it under “anomaly.”

And being Irish doesn’t hurt.

But even with my good luck, I was unprepared for the e-mail I got on a snowy Sunday afternoon in early March.

“Good afternoon, Kristin,” it began. The sender — a stranger by all accounts — introduces himself as a former teacher and principal and refers to an article I had recently contributed to School Administrator magazine about social media in schools. He went on:

“Now working in book publishing, I invite you to consider publishing a book with us, one that explores the subject of your article more fully. That’s assuming, of course, that you’re not already under contract with another publisher. It would be a real pleasure, Kristin, to work with you on such a book.”

Forget feeling lucky — I was stunned. (And amused at the suggestion that I would be under contract with another publisher. Clearly, this friendly stranger knows nothing of my barely-fitting-it-all-in life of work and family and kids and groceries and laundry. No, generously kind sir. I’m not working with another publisher. I’m barely keeping up. You’re serious about this book thing?)

There is a long, winding story I could tell of learning more, and saying yes, writing-writing-writing, editing and drinking way too many late-night peanut butter cookie milkshakes from Sonic. But there are also a few things I learned about myself on this part-lucky, part-crazy road…

  • I can be out of the office. (And this is big.) The only way I was able to write a book was to use leave time from my day job and dedicate each of those days, at home, exclusively to the book. I’m a reliable employee with a healthy family, and five-day weeks have nearly always been the norm. This project changed that, with almost three straight months of four-day weeks. Many times I felt disconnected from my colleagues and the everyday hum of an office. And I usually felt some degree of crushed by fitting four days into five, week after week. But I learned this: I can be gone when I need to be gone, and nothing will burn down. (Really!) Once my leave balances are built up again, I will remember to take the time I need and not worry so much about being gone.
  • I can balance distractions. Working from home on an independent (lonely) project is isolating. Jumping on Twitter or e-mail to get outside of my own head is only natural. But turning on the TV or starting some housekeeping initiative — no matter how small — was a day killer. Setting a clear goal for each day kept me motivated enough to stay on task. And allowing myself breaks short breaks to check my Twitter feed or walk around the block kept me from drowning in my own overwhelm. Even with an enormous mountain to climb, it’s wise to pause every so often and look around.
  • I can re-learn the Oxford comma. I happily shed that extra piece of punctuation in high school journalism, and I haven’t looked back. But my publisher required it in the manuscript, forcing me to lead a double life for months: Book Author Kristin including that comma before a coordinating conjunction in a series, and Normal Kristin in my regular job and life without it. Somehow I actually managed to include it or drop it at the right time, most of the time. This still amazes me, as it hints that I could maybe re-learn other deeply ingrained habits, too. Whoa.
  • I eat candy with abandon. Especially when I’m home alone with just my laptop, my dog and unyielding pressure to produce. And most especially when I’ve already bought the Easter basket candy, but Easter is still five days away, and I can always secretly go to the store buy another bag of Whoppers robin eggs.

This list barely scratches the surface of what I’ve discovered on my book author journey. I’m learning to own my authority. I’m learning to brand and market myself. I’m learning to push way outside of my comfort zone and ask people I barely know to get behind my ideas. And I’m learning the joy of collaborating with people — often strangers — who are thrilled at the chance to tell their story.

Right now, I appreciate the simplicity of the four lessons I’ve shared above. They are truths about me as a person, and as a professional — and reflecting on them now is a good reminder of just how lucky I am.

easter candy

When pie goes viral

by Filed Under: Social Media Leave a Comment

Whether I’m at work or not, social media is part of my daily life — and the time I spend on Twitter and Pinterest are my favorite. The rapid, continuous flow of new ideas, perspectives and things to try? That’s a slice of heaven for this information junkie.

And so, in late July, Pinterest was the logical destination in my quest to find the perfect recipe for the birthday that my son and husband share. After a fair bit of discernment and negotiation, they agreed that coconut cream pie would be the thing to cap off this grand double-birthday-day. Yes, Pinterest is a trigger for inferiority complexes across the social landscape. (Even I must dial it back when I start feeling guilty for not a) making my own soap b) packing a bento box with whole foods for my son’s school lunch c) owning a jar of Modge Podge.) But when it comes to finding a great recipe — one that is blogged about, photographed, explained, reviewed and shared — there’s no place I’d rather start.

In one evening, I scanned dozens of coconut cream pie recipes and very mindfully pinned the four most decadent, well-conceived recipes I found. A few days later, I selected the most promising — The World’s Best Coconut Cream Pie Ever — and made the most ridiculously crave-worthy coconut cream pie that any of us had ever had. I even made sure to go back and leave myself comments on the pin, indicating that I had made it, and we’d loved it. (Such comments are important to me, as I cannot be expected to remember which coconut cream pie recipe we fell in love with. Most days I’m lucky if I can remember my e-mail password.)

But as we were licking our plates after the birthday dinner, something else was happening in the Pinterest world.

Although I use social media a lot, the content I post never goes viral. Two or three retweets, or a half dozen “likes” or repins is viral in my humble world. So imagine my surprise when one of the recipes — not the one I made and left two comments on — did something much different. Somehow, that pin has gone viral.

It started like any other, with three or four repins over a couple days. And then it got going, five or so at a time. A few weeks ago, I’d hit nearly 100 repins, but it seemed to be tapering off. But then last weekend it caught fire again, and by Tuesday I was up to 180 repins. It was at that point that I announced to my husband (and on Twitter), “If this thing hits 200 repins, I’m going to have to make it to at least see if it’s any good.”

So today, with 225 pins and still climbing, I made The Absolute Best Coconut Cream Pie. We ate it. We loved it. But it wasn’t, however, as good as the first pie we made. The one on my Sweet Tooth board with no likes or repins? That’s the keeper.

Unlike the astoundingly viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, coconut cream pie — even the very best one — can’t change the world. But this mini-viral pie pin has made me think a lot about posts that catch fire, and it’s been a reminder that viral can be based on very little substance or validity. Researchers have found that viral content is typically highly emotional, tapping into anger, humor and other strong emotions that are universally experienced in social spheres. My pie pin couldn’t possibly have made anyone overly angry or giddy, so I point instead to the pass-along nature of Pinterest — one person pins, and her followers see it. One or two of those repin to their followers, and a few of those pinners do the same.

My hunch is, this exponential exposure is responsible for the ongoing flurry of repins. That, and the fact that a recipe for coconut cream pie (whether or not it deserves to be called “absolute best”) is, at once, aspirational, attainable and entirely delectable.

Coconut Cream Pie

Not as different as we look

by Filed Under: Social Media, Thoughtful work Leave a Comment

Although I work in K-12 education, many of the very best social media practices I use came from colleagues in the varied worlds of small business, non-profit and corporate. Virtually everything I do – the way I build our school district’s online community, the way I craft our messages, the way I handle an angry parent or patron – all of these are heavily influenced by the smart people I know (IRL and on Twitter) who manage social media in all kinds of sectors.

And the greatest thing I’ve learned from this collaboration of learning and sharing is that we communicators – from corporate to government, and everywhere in between – are much more similar than we may appear on the surface…

  • We all have stakeholders, clients and customers. And these groups of people are vital to our success, whether we are selling, creating, helping, serving or educating. The best practices for building and engaging a social media community are consistent, regardless of the business, agency or organization. In addition, the online communities we manage also sometimes have angry people – occasionally even crazy angry people – and the strategies for handling these interactions are effective across all fields.
  • We all have employees who use social media personally and, sometimes, as part of their job. We know that boundaries and guidelines help ensure that our employees are the best reflection of our mission and brand. We also know that it takes a focused, strategic effort to empower, trust and monitor multiple “official” contributors to social media. Empowering multiple content creators leads to greater community engagement – but it also demands greater planning and management from the top.
  • We all have a reputation to protect, including our brand and the leaders associated with the brand. It may be a product or service. It may be a CEO, a manager, an elected official or a superintendent. It could be logos, intellectual property or simply the organization’s public image. We know that social media cannot be ignored in the work of brand and reputation management. Whether people are talking to us in our communities or talking about us in other communities, we must monitor, understand and, often, proactively engage, to ensure the integrity of our organization’s reputation.
  • We all – with rare and lucky exception – have people in leadership positions who get nervous about the role that social media plays in all of the areas above. How do we bring along governing boards and reluctant leaders? How do we demonstrate the value – quantitative and qualitative – that a strategically managed social media community offers to our organizations? And how do we help leaders to face fears, mitigate risk, and embrace opportunity?

It’s true: Not everyone gets to work in a place with school buses, recess, plays, spelling bees, concerts, science fairs and football games. But the strategies, perspectives, challenges and opportunities that come with social media and the organizations we represent – those are what we all share.

I originally wrote this as a guest post for the Social Media Club of Kansas City, where I will be participating in a panel discussion next week about social media in schools.

Riding the roller coaster

by Filed Under: Growth & change, Thoughtful work Leave a Comment

Transitions are natural. Systems evolve to meet changing needs and fill new purposes. Coworkers embrace new opportunities. Leaders move on to new career challenges and life chapters.

But transitions are hard. Even when they are handled best, changes come with uncertainties, lack of clarity and anxiety about the unknown.

The leadership change in the district where I work is not unexpected — we have known about it for more than a year, and we have actively worked toward the transition since a new superintendent was hired in January. But even this preparation doesn’t change the fact that the transition itself is just, well, awkward.

Several years ago, I told a former superintendent, in the final week or so before he headed out of state for his next gig, how odd it felt for those of us staying behind. He was excited about his new district, his new staff, his new community. In the meantime, we were left with the work that, at least to some extent, he had chosen to leave behind. His giddy excitement and urgency to share this and that detail? I told him I just couldn’t feign any more excitement. I compared it to having to pretend you enjoyed hanging out with your ex.

“It’s kind of like you’ve broken up,” he said, “and you’re still living together in the apartment because there’s a month left on the lease. But there’s no more romance.”

Yes, in so many ways, it’s almost exactly that.

It’s a roller coaster, packing up one leader and helping the next unpack. Ups and downs. Curves and loop-d-loops. Dread and exhilaration. Time and again, I’ve found that only way to get through it is to hold on tight, close your eyes and scream if you have to, and know that this emotionally volatile ride won’t last forever.

This week, our administrative team took a three-day retreat with the incoming superintendent, while the retiring superintendent hung back to pack up his office. We drove three hours away, staked out cabins and bunk beds, braved a high ropes course, roasted s’mores. We also had meeting after meeting, orienting ourselves to our work, to our new leader, and to a bright future ahead. We have connected (and reconnected) with each other, welcomed a couple of new faces, and firmed up the foundation of a team with much work to do.

As guests of an education service center, we also were treated to an hour in the science center building simple roller coasters — and it was only fitting, given the transitions we’re navigating right now. Broken into teams of three or four, we were given a long rubber track, three different balls, and a couple rolls of tape. From there, we imagined, built, tested and rebuilt our roller coaster tracks. Each had at least one hill, loop and curve. And each signified the teamwork, communication, creativity, resilience and collaboration needed to be successful.

Our roller coaster wasn’t fancy. But riding the roller coaster of change isn’t about looking good, any more than riding a real roller coaster is. It’s about soaking in the experience and the satisfaction of seeing it through.

Jump in, the water’s great!

by Filed Under: Embracing Social Media: A Practical Guide to Manage Risk and Leverage Opportunity, Social Media, Thoughtful work Leave a Comment

We’ve just celebrated a cool anniversary in my school district. A couple of years ago, the leaders here decided that it was time to embrace social media as a broad tool in education. A communications tool. A teaching tool. A learning tool. We had an established Facebook page, and a few teachers dabbling on their own time. (Because, of course our school district filters didn’t allow them on Facebook or Twitter. I had double-secret-probation-extra-special filter settings to manage our district page at work.)

But two years ago, my superintendent decided that locking down social media was no longer the best option. No, the ostrich pose wasn’t going to serve our students well (at all). With the help of a nearby consultant with a hefty corporate social media pedigree and personal passion for local schools, we wrote policy and guidelines, we set up a few procedures to keep the internal lines of communication open, we provided training to our employees. And we reconfigured our network filters to allow adult users the privileges to access social media at work. Crazy, I know.

In the time since, I’ve been asked to share our story with different groups and in a few trade magazines. (I’m also writing a book on this subject, which is why my blog has been so sad over the past few months. But this whole book nonsense is another post for another day.) When I’m asked to share our social media story what always surprises me is, really, how simple our work has been.

Without a doubt, social media can inspire enormous fear and loathing in the hearts and minds of school districts, non-profits, public agencies and — especially — the boards that govern these groups.

We read the stories and see the reports on television about people making really bad decisions on the social media stage. In education, we see teachers and administrators who lose their jobs, kids who jeopardize their future goals, and parents who go a little (and sometimes a lot) crazy.

But the simple lesson that we’ve learned — over and again — in the past two years is that social media is no different than the other issues that we manage every day. We serve kids lunch every day because our food and nutrition services workers have been trained in safe kitchen skills and food safety. We transport kids on buses every day because our drivers follow specific vehicle, traffic and safety procedures. At the end of the day, our work is embedded with basic risk management. Social media programs included.

We believe that social media offers a huge reward. We can engage with parents in a content-rich, real-time exchange. We can create legitimate relevance and rigor for our students as they learn. (Show me the student who won’t bring their A game if told his or her work will be on a public stage.) We can encourage our staff to seek professional development through the enormous opportunities on Twitter. And now, we can serve as encouragers and guides to other districts and organizations, still wrestling with fear of the unknown, or unsure about the process of embracing social media.

Our story here means a lot of things to me. But I hope the most important take-away to you is this: Jump in (or wade in, or dip your toe in) and see for yourself — the water’s great!

Facebook page

Tune in to WII-FM

by Filed Under: Embracing Social Media: A Practical Guide to Manage Risk and Leverage Opportunity, Strategic Communications 1 Comment

As a communications director, I’m often approached by a frustrated colleague or friend:

“Nobody is clicking our post / reading our newsletter / opening our e-mails / responding to our survey / (and the list goes on). I’ve tried everything! What am I missing?”

I’ll ask a few questions, we’ll talk a little bit, and virtually every time, it comes back to this: It’s time to tune into station WII-FM … What’s In It For Me?

The fact is, it doesn’t matter what we want to say, or what we want people to know. It doesn’t even matter what we NEED them to know. Our message won’t bypass the average person’s drinking-from-the-information-fire-hydrant filter if it doesn’t resonate in a way that fills a personal need. Because let’s face it: When it comes to our audience’s long list of priorities, the messages we typically want or need to push out aren’t at the top. (Or most times, even in the bottom middle.)

Think of WII-FM as that station that comes in the strongest and clearest in the car and, consequently, the one you are the most likely to have on. It’s the place where a person hears what she needs for her day, for her job, for her family. The need-to-know information that makes a person’s day run. As communicators, only the messages that hit that same frequency stand a real chance of engaging our audience’s attention or prompting action.

The good news? Most messages can be reframed (a little or a lot) to resonate on the “what’s in it for me” channel. Yes, it’s sometimes a little sad to know that my information won’t be valued solely on its merits (because dang, I write some righteous messages!), but my own pride is worthless if my message falls flat.

If a message goes out and nobody hears it, it doesn’t make a sound. And more importantly, it doesn’t make a difference. To anyone.

We can do better! Open up your toolbox and pull out your empathetic skills, your devil’s advocate skills, and your mind-bending-creative-thinking skills. Each is essential to tuning into WII-FM. And consider these two questions as you frame your message to hit the right frequency for your audience:

  1. Is this message naturally important to the audience? In the case of parents in our school district, naturally important messages include snow days, crisis updates and specific health information that has an immediate effect on their student (head lice, anyone?). Just because you have truly important information, don’t assume that it’s important to the audience. Our school district office moved to a new location last summer — something several audiences genuinely needed to know — but we made sure to frame our communications around messages, timelines and channels that were finely tuned to the needs and motivations of our employees and stakeholder groups. For employees, few things are more motivating than knowing you need to go somewhere new to pick up your paycheck.
  2. If the message doesn’t qualify as naturally important, what priorities or values do you share? You and your audience both may place a strong value on the message, but you likely are motivated by different forces. For example, school districts need students in our schools, so we work hard on tardiness and absenteeism. But it’s unlikely that a school’s administrative need to have kids at school will motivate a parent. Instead, we must frame our communications around these types of questions: What is the advantage for a mom to have her child in school? How does this genuinely help make a dad’s life easier? (N.B., This must be something that the audience member would agree makes his or her life better or easier. If you aren’t certain, spend some time talking to a few sample audience members about the issue. Because if you’re wrong, you simply won’t hit the frequency.)

While my examples all reflect my work in a school district, WII-FM is just as important with any non-profit, small business, corporation or government agency. In all cases, the messages and information we’re pushing out must resonate with our audience on a self-interest level, in order to cut through the noise and catch the audience’s attention.

The best part? The more we’re able to frame messages around the “what’s in it for me” model, the more capital we’ll have to spend at times when the messages aren’t directly tied to our audience’s immediate needs. Whether a call to action for advocacy on your behalf, a request for financial support or an invitation to attend a focus group or event — these things typically don’t fall at the top of most people’s lists. But your audience members will much more likely tune into your station, if you’ve shown them over time that you’re clearly tuned into theirs.

Radio dial

On becoming a student of change

by Filed Under: Growth & change, Thoughtful work Leave a Comment

Several years ago, my beloved boss abruptly took another job out of state. This departure, which transpired over the course of just a few weeks, meant saying goodbye to a man who allowed me to find my voice as a communications professional — and empowered me to make my voice heard.

It was a time of change that turned me inside out. I was angry, lonely, sometimes even a little bit desperate. But more than anything, I was afraid.

I work in school public relations, and if there’s one thing that my school PR family understands, it’s the nuance of the relationship between a communications director and a superintendent. And just how much (of everything else) depends on it.

Although I already had a solid working relationship with the man assigned to take over the position — and have thoroughly adored working for him in the six years since — the fear of the unknown paralyzed me. I was afraid of whether my newly discovered and increasingly confident professional voice would matter to my next boss. I was afraid of how the working dynamic would undoubtedly change. I feared I wouldn’t find the same level of chemistry and friendship with someone new.

I was afraid of the unknown.

But in my months-long process of fretting, I stumbled on this quote:

Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant.
-Anthony J. D’Angelo

We all know that change is constant, and hard. But this idea of becoming a student of change made me pause. To be a student of something means to sit with it and get to know it. To understand the ins and outs. And to embrace that fear cannot exist in a place of understanding. Becoming a student of change would allow me to take charge — to learn and grow, instead of being hostage to a force outside my control. Time (mercifully) passed, and things got easier as I took inventory and worked harder.

Fast forward to today, and I’m preparing for a yet-to-be-hired new superintendent. I won’t say I’m always comfortable with the unknown. But I can say that approaching this change as a change student opens up a space where I can operate without fear. (I should note that the fact we have every reason to believe the next superintendent here will be a great leader makes it far easier to do this.) With applications rolling in and my current superintendent on contract until the end of June, this road isn’t especially short. But here are five questions I am working on right now, as student of change:

  1. What specific skills or knowledge can I learn from this transitional process that will be valuable to me in the future?
  2. What activities or skills can I personally call on to steady my fretting?
  3. What specific skills or knowledge will I provide to make my new boss successful?
  4. What steps can I take to help my new boss learn about me, even before he or she takes the reins in July?
  5. What ideas will I take to my new boss — innovations or projects that I’ve been thinking about but haven’t moved on yet — at this time next year?

These questions have already begun to provide great insight and calm as I size up the next six months. If nothing else, they are specific, constructive thinking things that I can choose to use when those fretting-about-the-unknown moments come to visit.

How do you stay focused, intentional and constructive during times of transition and change?

ArrowRoadSign

Boiling it down

by Filed Under: Growth & change, Personal branding Leave a Comment

As I recently shared, I am on a journey to refine my personal brand — to define myself as a professional and individual.

This journey began about a month ago as I set out to create personal greeting cards to reflect my brand. I have always been a note writer, and I credit my mom with teaching me this value. Growing up, my sister and I had to write thank you notes to relatives for Christmas gifts within a day or two of opening them. A dreaded chore at times, but one that taught us well. I went away to college, studied abroad for a year and later married and moved a few hours from home. And whether my mom was mailing me a couple of photos from a recent holiday, a care package with some cookies, or just the pair of sunglasses I’d forgotten on her kitchen counter, there was always a personal note tucked inside.

Don’t get me wrong. My daily world survives on e-mail, text, direct messages and phone calls. But that’s what makes a personal note so powerful. It stands apart.

The custom greeting card endeavor required me to work on two things:

  1. A quote to feature on the front that reflects the brand I aim to project
  2. A personal boilerplate statement to include on the back with my contact information.

So, first, the quote. I searched for quotes on creativity, on strategy and communications. On working together, having a vision, bringing passion to your day. I lingered on Alice In Wonderland quotes for probably far too long. After bouncing around on Google enough to coat my eyes and mind with a permanent glaze, I finally settled on a popular Steve Jobs quote:

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

Yes, I’d hoped to avoid a possible cliche and find something more Masterpiece Theatre, less Good Morning America. But the more I looked and the more I thought (and thought), the more I found the Jobs quote to articulate the essence of my brand, better than any other. It got to my idealism, my love for the creative process, my hope for the future. (And the chronic crazy.) It just worked.

Next came my boilerplate. An old-school journalism term, a boilerplate is the short, standard paragraph that corporations and organizations include at the end of every news release. Done right, it orients the reader, immediately, to what you’re all about. Think of it as boiling everything down to the very basics. (The term actually derives from the late 1800s when steam boiler manufacturers used metal plates so people could tell who made the boiler, but that’s okay. I’m flexible that way.)

For my own boilerplate, I knew it needed to be short. An elevator speech needs to wrap up before those doors open up. (And goodness knows my chaotic brain does better with fewer words to recall on demand.) But more important than length, I knew it needed to be direct —  not a word wasted, not a syllable more than necessary — but also human, showing that I am more than a list of skills. After much deliberation, word play and idea-bouncing with one awesomely brilliant friend, here’s the result:

I’m passionate about making things better through strategic communications and collaboration. And I’m crazy about my family, sharing stories, big laughs and great food.

That’s it. And the best part? I typed it just now without having to look back at my notes. I’ll take that as a sign. A good one.

Boiling water

Let’s talk labels

by Filed Under: Growth & change, Personal branding 2 Comments

Right here, today, I am rejecting my fear of being labeled. In fact, it’s time to label myself.

Yes, this stirs in me all sorts of fears and vulnerabilities. I’m too complex to be labeled. … You don’t know me. … There’s more to me than that. But this desire to define how others define me started recently with something I can only describe as coalescence — a small series of unexpected phone calls and surprising e-mail messages, all leading me to the conclusion that people were beginning to figure out what Kristin Magette is all about.

Now, before I get any closer to the self-importance ledge, let me say that these connections and opportunities were not of the life-changing variety. Agreeing to write a short blog post for the web site company at the school district where I work. Sitting as the subject of a video blog for a consultant we’d hired to help us embrace social media, which got exciting traction when Edudemic picked it up. Speaking on a panel in a local social media workshop for non-profits. Writing an article or two for an education journal about social media in schools. The kinds of things that flatter but don’t make you some kind of a Big Deal. (Which is good because I’ve watched enough reality shows on Bravo to know that I am not entirely interested in being a Big Deal.)

But in the midst of realizing that I was kind of becoming known for something, I read the perfect post by (amazing) Jonathan Fields. His point: People will label you – so you’d best label yourself first. And this was the moment when I decided to take control. I am more than someone who has ideas about social media in schools — I love that part of my job and professional identity – but it is just one part. The need to label myself more holistically is what led me to personal branding. And if I’m going to brand myself, I need to decide what that means and how to get there. Learning from a friend and colleague who has a masterful approach to personal branding (read about it on his blog here), these are the goals I set for myself:

  1. Improve my profile on LinkedIn to maximize for SEO, and be purposeful about my use of social media, in particular Twitter and (sigh) Google+. Seek to engage with the users and spaces I want to be connected to.
  2. Create greeting cards featuring a quote that gets to the essence of who I am and how I want to be perceived. Use these cards to send personal notes to friends and colleagues on occasion.
  3. Write a short, easily remembered personal boilerplate. (Insert shout-out to the awesome journalism teachers of my past for the fact that I know what a boilerplate is.) Weave this into my LinkedIn profile, and include it on the back of the greeting cards.
  4. Upgrade my professional photograph. (No, that selfie I took from my laptop in an old dumpy office doesn’t quite do it for me anymore.) Since I currently lack a budget for this goal, I’ll focus on other goals for now. The free ones.
  5. Start blogging. (This was not an original goal, but seeing as how I’ve now done it, I am adding it to my list. Does anyone else out there add things they’ve already done to their to-do list? Oh. Okay.)

If you have worked on personal branding for yourself or have thoughts about my goals, please share!

Name tag

Hi, I’m Kristin

Kristin Magette

I have lived life in the arena, under spotlights. That's where I discovered that no success could ever lead me to the things that matter most.

And I have never been more certain, friends: You and I were made for joy.

Follow Me on Twitter