The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

Business social networks mature

LinkedIn, the business equivalent of social network sites like Facebook and Myspace, is preparing for an IPO that could potentially value it at anything up to $1bn.

The emotional draw of brands

Tim O'Brien has a great post over on his blog 'The Person to See' about how our personal brand includes how we make people feel. 

My new Technorati profile

If you're going to use a Blog to build your online presence then you supposedly need to set up a Technorati Profile. I'll be watching carefully to see if it does, indeed, increase my visibility online - watch this space!

7 ways to stay stuck in your career

The first edition of  ®evolutions has been held up, so just to whet your appetites I've posted a full length article here (and you'll need to sign up to access it).

Entitled '7 ways to stay stuck in your career', it details the ways in which we often block ourselves from making the career changes we want to.

What do you do?

I was horrified at a networking event some years ago, when I overheard someone ask another attendee "and what are you?" As questions go, it's pretty direct, but it does seem to me like the questioner wanted to put people very firmly in boxes marked 'accountant', 'lawyer' and so on. People love to classify other people. It makes us feel comfortable. It makes it much simpler to deal with the complexities of society. It lets us ignore the individual differences, and focus on similarity.

It's here!

OK, if you've read my blog for a while now, you know that I'm an avid book reader. So I was really excited the other day when a package I'd been waiting for for quite some time finally arrived. Inside was a copy of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand (or HERE if you're in the US), hot off the presses.

Social networking

A strong network which can put you in touch with the *right* people is one of the bedrocks of a POWER brand. However, I've often wondered whether you can really build that kind of network in the rather sterile, forced environment of a networking meeting (you know the kind of thing I mean - 20 professionals who haven't got enough clients meeting over breakfast to try to sell to each other).

Are you an archetypal leader?

Self-help guru Tony Robbins has identified six primal needs that motivate all of our behaviours. Naturally, these drivers also manifest themselves in our work as leaders.