Have you noticed the badge on this site for Brazen Careerist?  Have you even heard of the site before?  If not, you need to check it out.  In their words:

A Brazen Careerist knows that defining your own career, finding the right field, and pursuing it are key ingredients to a fulfilling life. Like the tag line suggests, when you define your career on your own terms first, you control your life.  We’re an online career center aimed at Generation Y — young professionals who want to design and define their careers using the new rules for success.

The site’s co-founder Ryan Paugh (of Employee Evolution) invited me to join and I’m happy to be part of their community.  I have found it to be a great site…not only to promote Hard Knox Life but also to network with fellow Gen Y Young Professionals.  Networking is key to success in business….plenty of books have been written telling you that.  But the Internet (and sites like BC or LinkedIn) make it easier then ever to form a great network.  You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a MBA…you don’t need to travel to every industry conference there is.  Just start networking through your blog and you will meet great people that share your same passion.

So check out my profile on Brazen Careerist and enjoy the site.  You won’t be disappointed.

Busy week and slow posting but here are some blog postings that caught my eye:

• What is digital and what is traditional?: The lines are forever blurring.  Digital will soon be everything and everywhere.
• Is your brand sticky or slippery?: I have been meaning to point out this post for a while.  Too many brands focus on being sticky for their digital strategy.  The point here is that you should focus on being a little bit of everywhere….be slippery.  Brilliant concept
• Not using TweetScan to manage your brand?  Think again:  Story of how Disqus had a powerful PR moment from monitoring TweetScan
• Customer Service – The most powerful branding tool ever: Simple idea…powerful application
• Cool Jobs for anyone looking: Method – Brand + New Ventures Analyst, Potbelly Regional Marketing Manager (Dallas & Midwest) 

When I was just starting off at P&G as an Assistant Brand Manager, I had a chance to have lunch with John Pepper. Pepper is the former CEO/Chairman of the Board at P&G and is currently Chairman of the Board at Walt Disney Company. Needless to say, the guy knows management and marketing. One of the things I have never forgotten from that lunch was what Pepper said about risk in our careers. He said that marketers inherently act on a V curve of risk taking with time/seniority on the X Axis and comfort with risk on the Y Axis. When you are junior, you can take risks because you have nothing to lose, there is nothing but upside if the risk pays off. Likewise when you are very senior, you can make strong statements about risk taking because your career is set and all you face is a golden parachute if the bet fails. Where we run into problems is middle management, those people around the Director level that are at a critical point in their career. They’ve put in enough time that their career is a good place and they are on the right track. They probably are now married with young kids, a mortgage and all the other responsibilities in life. In other words, in their eyes there is a little upside with risk, but a lot of downside. They are comfortable with how things are and they aren’t going to place many bets or experiment. (more…)