Branding+Your+Image

media type="custom" key="3057072" It seems that anything our new president is wearing is a hot commodity giving way to the commoditification of the brand. From the Chicago White Sox cap he adorns on quick trips around Washington to his endearing Blackberry, if President Obama has it then America wants it. What is great about this is that it is purely genuine and it defines his personality: loyal and technologically driven. The organizations that make these products could not ask for a better brand promoter: free and authentic!

The other side of his brand is his entire platform for change. It has been contagiously used by many companies as a way to say that Obama promises a change and this will help you buy our product- because we know you really want to! What is your brand? Take this link to our home page and choose the discussion topic entitle **Branding Your Identity** and share your thoughts about branding your image.

Part of our study this semester has been our performance at work and the other is the situation embed or the ethnographic study on which we have by now embarked. On Wednesday, March 4th, during workshop 6, we will take a closer look at ourselves in both environments- at work and in our embedded environment in order to share what we have learned. As you reflect thus far on your interpersonal studies, take a look at the reading at the beginning of Ch. 6 of our text, //Being Open with and to Other People// by David W. Johnson. Think about these opening questions: How well have you listened to the disclosures that you have encountered and what have you learned about them and yourself? How have the self disclosures branded an image of this person, or persons and how have they added or detracted from his/her or their self-presentation? How about your self disclosures? How have they branded a favorable image of yourself in the mind of others. As you look closer at self disclosures, keep in mind the parameters of the two studies and please be prepared to discuss your findings thus far in terms of these three topics:

1. Audience-centered self presentations 2. Using your self-disclosures to befriend and/or establish trust with the persons in the group you have been studying 3. Learning objectives- predictions vs. outcomes- what were your predictions of the group, what have negated or changed these predictions.

There are many benefits of self disclosure as they help to build and sustain relationships. What have been the benefits of self-disclosure thus far in the relationships you are building within the group you are studying and in your performance appraisals you are conducting? We will also take a look at an excerpt from the Emmy-Award winning documentary //There By the Grace of God// produced by Reporter Pat Harper and NBC News, New York. We will see how she embedded herself in the homeless community and how she was able to build relationships with members of this community. She needed to brand her image as a homeless woman with a past, a reason for her homelessness and a peer to the community. The pictures and the story are compelling as they tell the real story of homelessness through the embedded reporter style of journalism.

Our discussion based workshop on **Branding Your Image** through disclosures, will allow for rich information and fuel for your projects. Please be prepared to learn from one another and from our readings in this chapter.