Have the Business Networking Gurus Got Personal Branding and Social Capital Muddled Up?
Gulp, I’m going to depart from my usual safe terrority of writing nice how to articles and write something a bit more controversial. It’s a big move for me, and I am hoping that I will survive to tell the tale, and not look very stupid in the process. Having read a lot of the literature on what makes a great networker, I think that many of the current leading thinkers on business networking have got it wrong. (There I’ve said it…) Lots of these thinkers and gurus write about the importance of cultivating social capital. I also see many of them advocating building up a strong personal brand. Whilst I agree with both of these, I think in this hyper-linked technology driven times you need both a strong personal brand AND shed loads of social capital to successfully build your career and business via networking. When I read the literature, I often see social capital mistaken for personal branding or vice versatile. Think of someone with a high level of social capital being the equivalent
