“The assessment of my personal digital brand was very helpful and I can highly recommend it. In a world where digital perception is reality, it is important to take your personal brand as serious as your business.”

Alain D. Bandle, a tri-lingual Swiss, holds an MBA from the University St. Gallen, Switzerland. Following his studies, Alain held leading positions at a number of companies including Procter & Gamble, Hewlett Packard, Swissair and Veba AG.

Appointed Managing Director of Dell Switzerland in November 2003, he took over as Managing Director of Dell in Germany and Austria one and a half years later. In November 2006, he was promoted Vice President and General Manager, responsible for Dell’s fast growing business in Central Europe.

Prior to joining Versatel, he served as Vice President and General Manager Public Segment Europe, responsible for the entire Public business in Europe with a sales volume of over 2.5 billion Euros.

Alain was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Versatel AG in May 2009.

“I thought the process was great; it was helpful having the personal coach nudge you to complete the activities that are difficult in the personal branding process.

The unique aspect of Brand Personal was to develop a consistent message on the internet and to include my own personality along with my business accomplishments. It helped me to understand my unique qualities that make me different from others who may share the same experiences.”

What can Karen do for you? Give her an unexplored market, property or technology: That’s where she thrives, making something from nothing. She has a passion for exploring the unexplored, knowing which questions to ask to identify unconventional solutions and define an efficient path forward from concepts to investment, commercialization to launch.

“Very productive session. As a senior advisor to emerging companies, my personal brand plays an important role in maintaining a strong network and creating new opportunities for my clients.”

Shep Parke is the CEO of TechDiscovery.

Shep brings to TechDiscovery over 25 years of enterprise solution consulting experience across global industries including Complex Information Technology, Information Services, Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail and Transportation Logistics.

Prior to joining TechDiscovery, Shep was a senior partner with Accenture where he built high impact, strategic client relationships and a new global consulting practice Accenture Customer Data Management into a 200 person, $100MM annual revenue business over five years. Shep retired from Accenture in February 2009 to provide growth advisory services to emerging info-tech companies.

“Really helpful for me. As someone who is very passionate about integrated media marketing, deploying my personal brand in the social media space is an essential part of managing my career.”

Shaman is a high energy, innovative leader with a successful track record in consumer/brand marketing, integrated media marketing & promotions.

After completing GE’s experienced commercial leadership program with stints at GE Capital and NBC Universal, Shaman is moving on to an exciting new position with a world-leading e-commerce firm.

“The “brand character” statement is probably the most important part of the copy strategy statement and the bane of every ABM. The reason is simple: it’s hard to crystallize the essence of a brand. But, it’s virtually impossible to do it for yourself…the most important brand around…without a little encouragement.

When I started with brandpersonal.com, the focus was on making myself visible online. But, it quickly became apparent that I needed to do the hard step first…define my brand’s character. Brandpersonal gave me invaluable pointers and urged me to adopt a doggedly consistent message—no matter where people might find me online.

After our very first review, I dug in and started the work. I am thrilled with the result. I learned how to create a highly unique personal brand—and I learned how to use it.

As a qualitative research explorer, I have positioned myself as “strategically empathetic and disarmingly approachable.” Provocative signal words like “simpatico” and “voyeurologist” pervade my communications.

Bottom line: brandpersonal helped me find MY voice. Check out my Linkedin or Plaxo listing or my website: 2fathom.com and let me know what you think of the results.”

Michael Piacentini is the president and founder of 2fathom, a qualitative research consultancy that specializes in Voyeurology ™: professional people watching both DIRECTLY in the context of “shared experience” focus groups, shop-a-longs, “dinner dates” and “coffee shop chats” and INDIRECTLY via virtual, self-directed ethnographies conducted via ThoughtStreaming Research. 2fathom’s work is focused on consumer products, with an emphasis in food and beverage.

“Overall, a great experience because it was a process that forced me to think about not just what I’ve done, but how I’ve done it.”

Patricia Enggaard-Betz is a brand management and marketing professional with a record of profitable growth initiatives for a diverse range of Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and small businesses.

She is currently consulting with a team of new product professionals on the launch of a nutraceutical product for the consumer market.

At Brand Personal we recognize that privacy is important. This Policy applies to all of the products, services and websites offered by Brand Personal or its subsidiaries or affiliated companies (collectively, Brand Personal’s “services”). If you have any questions about this Policy, please feel free to contact us through our website.

1. Information we collect and how we use it

We offer a number of services that do not require you to register for an account or provide any personal information to us. In order to provide our full range of services, we may collect the following types of information:

Information you provide – When you sign up for a Brand Personal Account or other Brand Personal service or promotion that requires registration, we ask you for personal information (such as your name, email address and an account password). For certain services we also request credit card or other payment account information which we maintain in encrypted form on secure servers. We may combine the information you submit under your account with information from other Brand Personal services or third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information.

Brand Personal cookies – When you visit Brand Personal, we send one or more cookies – a small file containing a string of characters – to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences and tracking user trends. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some Brand Personal features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

Log information – When you use Brand Personal services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.

User communications – When you send email or other communication to Brand Personal, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services.

Other sites – This Privacy Policy applies to web sites and services that are owned and operated by Brand Personal. We do not exercise control over the sites displayed as search results or links from within our various services. These other sites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.

Brand Personal only processes personal information for the purposes described in the applicable Privacy Policy and/or privacy notice for specific services. In addition to the above, such purposes include:
* Providing our products and services to users, including the display of customized content and advertising;
* Auditing, research and analysis in order to maintain, protect and improve our services;
* Ensuring the technical functioning of our network; and
* Developing new services.

Brand Personal processes personal information on our servers in the United States of America. We may process personal information to provide our own services. In some cases, we may process personal information on behalf of and according to the instructions of a third party, such as our advertising partners.

2. Choices for personal information

When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.

If we propose to use personal information for any purposes other than those described in this Policy and/or in the specific service notices, we will offer you an effective way to opt out of the use of personal information for those other purposes. We will not collect or use sensitive information for purposes other than those described in this Policy and/or in the specific service notices, unless we have obtained your prior consent.

You can decline to submit personal information to any of our services, in which case Brand Personal may not be able to provide those services to you.

3. Information sharing

Brand Personal only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Brand Personal in the following limited circumstances:

We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of Brand Personal, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

If Brand Personal becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets, we will provide notice before personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

We may share with third parties certain pieces of aggregated, non-personal information, such as the number of users who searched for a particular term, for example, or how many users clicked on a particular advertisement. Such information does not identify you individually.

Please contact us through this website for any additional questions about the management or use of personal data.

4. Information security

We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data.

We restrict access to personal information to Brand Personal employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to operate, develop or improve our services. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.

5. Data integrity

Brand Personal processes personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy or any applicable service-specific privacy notice. We review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but we depend on our users to update or correct their personal information whenever necessary.

6. Accessing and updating personal information

When you use Brand Personal services, we make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes. We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed before processing such requests, and we may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes), or for which access is not otherwise required. In any case where we provide information access and correction, we perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort.

7. Enforcement

Brand Personal regularly reviews its compliance with this Policy. Please feel free to direct any questions or concerns regarding this Policy or Brand Personal’s treatment of personal information by contacting us through this web site. When we receive formal written complaints at this address, it is Brand Personal’s policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between Brand Personal and an individual.

8. Changes to this policy

Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Policy without your explicit consent, and we expect most such changes will be minor. Regardless, we will post any Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of Policy changes). Each version of this Policy will be identified at the bottom of the page by its effective date.

If you have any additional questions or concerns about this Policy, please feel free to contact us any time through this web site.

July 20, 2009

Pick a headline:  Competition is global. Information is free. The playing field has leveled.  They are all saying the same thing – the old rules no longer apply.

What changed?  Consumers and business customers have been empowered by the free flow of information that the Internet and the advent of social media have created.  Finding the right solution and choosing who to do business with is easier than ever before.  To use a sports analogy – the ball is in the customer’s court.

We work best with clients who set big goals, have 10% in the bag and are determined to get to 10x.  They have a vision as well as the foresight to partner with world-class talent to realize their potential.

Fueled by passion, we focus on projects that matter to us.  Our clients value us for what we do best.  We find partners and supporters along the way who understand us and who have mutual interests.

Our firm hires and partners with people like us and like you.  Smart, driven professionals who take calculated risks and learn from failure.  People who get things done, do what they say and encourage others to be the best at what they do.  Life is too short to do it any other way.

From a personal perspective, I read everything that I can get my hands on.  I learn from other people all the time.  In the past 12 months I’ve participated in meetings where the presenter’s experience ranged from WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell to a 22 year-old Facebook executive and walked away a little smarter from all of the sessions.

An innovator and experimenter, I try and do new things every day.  I enjoy defining the path and helping others to discover it.

I’ve worked at the intersection of technology, brand and innovation for 25 years and created over $6 billion of market value along the way.  Former employers and clients include mega companies like Procter & Gamble, Eli Lilly, Georgia Pacific, RR Donnelley, BellSouth, Dun & Bradstreet and EDS.  Mid-sized, privately-owned firms and a venture-backed start-up are also part of my background.

I’ve enjoyed working with great people, stretching to achieve ambitious goals and experiencing the inevitable ups and downs inherit in business while keeping an eye out for the next, and hopefully, bigger challenge.

I look forward to working with you.