I'm looking forward to a social gathering and speech tonight where Dan Schawbel will talk about "personal branding"--how you market yourself to other people. I've had an amazing amount of interest in my story of using social media in my search for work, including a number of media interviews, most recently a front-page story in the Boston Business Journal.

I've expanded my network greatly, but I recognize I am still not very narrowly-defined...people send me job listings I'm way under or overqualified for and they are surprised when I talk about my involvement in local issues. The "mash-up or blended life" is not a great "closer" for an interview. And pursuit of starting my business Dave Atkins Media! is confusing--am I looking for a job or work or both?

You can watch me talk about this in my first video blog post below:

That's a first draft video effort, so bear with me! Note: in the video, I say something like "why would anyone know more than a dozen people..." I was talking about people in your technology specialty...not your family, friends, etc. !

Update:

I'm including the raw video footage below from Dan's talk. This will not win any awards for production quality, but the content is worth listening to...