The names of Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Ruth Sahanaya, or Inul Daratista are familiar among society. Hearing their names would instantly drive someone to a certain image of their profession. They have strong brands. Brand is not only owned by a product created by a company. Brand is an identity of the product, service or specific business.
In such competitive era of information today, human as a persona needs a brand to differentiate itself from other human beings. Therefore, they are creating and promoting a unique personal brand. Indeed, it is not enough to only rely on the brand, for having success at work other important aspects are still needed, such as leadership.
Based on that issue, Marketing Club, Human Resource Club, and Entrepreneur Club of UGM Master in Management Program (MM) held a Hybrid Seminar "Build and Brand Yourself Professionally", Saturday (30/4), in the Auditorium of MM Program UGM. Present as the speakers at the event were experts in the field of character building and personal branding, Charles Bonar Sirait and Krishnamurti.
Firstly, the mindset motivator, Krishnamurti, in the event sought to develop participants’ patterns of thought and consciousness to achieve success. In order to achieve a goal, a person needs a dream so that their life can be even better. The dreams are very likely to fail in the future. However, we can always look for a solution for any situation. "Dispose the trash of the thought to harvest gold. A failure may occur, but we can still look for the solutions," said founder of the Bidadari Words spirit company.
Krishnamurti said that a person can be rich or poor, successful or failing, depending on the programs existing in their own minds. In his view, it is the idea that makes money, not the other way around. However, in order to build a branding, ideas, works, thoughts, energy, and money requires a process. "It all started from a program existing in our own minds. To build branding requires a process," he said. By involving the participants, Krishnamurti also attempted to identify the character with direct practice, such as maintaining balance using drinking straws until they are all connected, and drawing a circle and animals.
Meanwhile, Charles Bonar Sirait who spoke at the second session tries to introduce the profession of public speaker that has the potential to be developed and can also bring profit. Charles assesses the ability and expertise to speak is very important and also a very expensive profession. In his observations, many S-1 or S-2 graduates at work are unable to develop themselves and their career because of the constraint in their limited speaking ability. "There are many cum laude graduates who failed in work because of their limited speaking ability. So, in addition to be skilled in the academic, people should posses the ability to speak out,” Charles said.
A public speaker should be able to bring a change. Many people talk or give presentation, but they turn out to be boring and do not bring any change as happened in the local election campaign (Pilkada). Charles also said that for someone to succeed as public speaker, the learning process should start from the early childhood. "Not all schools or even families develop public speaking, whereas to cultivate that ability should be started from the early childhood," the author of The Power of Public Speaking added.
Besides the seminar, the event opened by the Deputy Director for Finance and General Affairs, dr. Hardo Basuki, M.Soc.Sc., also featured personal branding competition. The competition featured three grand finalists of You! Competition, who are the MM students. They show examples of personal branding in the form of video resumes and public speaking. Later they received feedback and assessment from both speakers.