Personal vs. Professional Identity

Allan Jenkins sez: don't mix your identity with your employer's and points to interesting readings.

The message: Guard your identity and don't mix it up with your company's identity. Otherwise, you risk being "disappeared" if you leave your job or get fired.

And in pure blogosphere style, Gunnar Langemark leaves the following comment:

How important this will become in the future, and how much it will be a fact of life for employers, I don't know. I believe that top talent will have more clout, and be able to set their own terms if hired. Also real top talent will become increasingly "non-employable" - meaning that employers will not be in a position to lure people into their companies. There'll be a whole new ecosystem around self-employed, small-bussiness, free agent types of business, and contract work will become much more attractive, as it should be. So being an employee will become more and more like having your own company. I sometimes bragg that I do as I please. I don't ask permission. The worst thing that they can do is fire me, and how bad would that be?

Reminds me of a former coworker who once stated about the company we both worked for at the time: "my brand is bigger than yours". He had a bigger footprint in the business than his employer had.

Can't tell you how much it resonates with this particular blogger.

[Source: Tidbits and more, the blog of Donna Tocci who's working in PR for Kryptonite (and who will obviously not blog about their blogosphere-powered lock fiasco as François notes)].