亲爱的安妮：您最近有一篇专栏文章，谈到了在工作中因害羞不敢大声发言的问题。我对这个话题很感兴趣，因为我的情况与文章有点类似。在有高层出席的会议上，我的上司总是抢先提出我的创意，而我自己根本没有机会发言；而且，他在提出这些解决方案的时候，就好像都是他想出来的，对我却只字不提。

    一位朋友知道这件事后对我说，我应该“宣传我的个人品牌”，这样公司和其他地方的人才会知道。我在自己所在的领域，即流程简化和提高运营效率方面，已经是专家。但要让我自吹自擂，宣扬自己曾经做过的事情，有点难度。有没有其他更巧妙的方式，能够让公司高层知道我所做出的贡献呢（又不会让我看起来是在批评上司窃取我的功劳），或者我就应该这样顺其自然？——无名英雄

 亲爱的无名英雄：你朋友的建议非常明智。但在听从朋友的建议之前，你应该了解什么才是个人品牌。与普遍存在的一种误解不同，建立品牌与自我吹嘘是完全不同的两码事。

    凯伦•康发现：“人们一听到‘自我推销’或‘自我营销’这些词，通常都会退缩，因为他们认为这就是要自我吹嘘，而他们并不想这么做。实际上，创建个人品牌是一个教育的过程，是要分享信息，参与讨论。创建个人品牌的目标是要决策者意识到你所具备的能力和能够带来的价值。”

    康曾是硅谷营销界泰斗雷吉斯•麦肯纳【苹果（Apple）、英特尔（Intel）等公司品牌建设背后的智囊】的合伙人，目前在帕洛阿尔托经营自己的公司BrandingPays，曾指导美国电话电报公司（AT&T）、惠普公司（HP）和自动柜员机生产商NCR公司的高管如何宣传自己的专长。她还曾出版过一本书——《品牌化价值：五步重塑个人品牌》（Branding Pays: A Five-Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand）。

    互联网出现之前，打造个人品牌并没有实际意义。毕竟，你的整个职业生涯都要在一家公司，或者最多两至三家公司里，一步步往上爬，你身边的所有人几乎都知道你擅长什么。而如今，时代不同了，职业安全感早已过时，大多数人要在更换八到十家公司（甚至更换职业），然后才会安定下来。或许只有我们自己才知道这一路走来自己所取得的成就。

    康说：“如今我们每个人都是自由人。要想成为真正的自由人，则需要人们努力打造自身的品牌。任何人想要启动一个项目，组建一支新团队，或达到某个特定目标，都需要知道谁具备必要的技能，可以提供什么样的专业知识。”

Dear Annie: I read your recent column on being too shy to speak up at work with interest, because my situation is kind of similar. I work for someone who keeps bringing up my ideas in meetings with senior management before I get the chance to speak; and he talks about these solutions I've come up with as if they were his own, with no mention of me at all.

    A friend who has witnessed this tells me I need to "promote my personal brand" so that people in the company and elsewhere know that I've become something of an expert in my area, which is streamlining processes and improving operational efficiency. But it's really hard for me to blow my own horn and brag about what I've done. Isn't there some other, more subtle way of letting higher-ups know what I've contributed (without seeming to criticize my boss for swiping the credit), or should I just let it go? -- Unsung Hero

Dear Unsung: Your friend is giving you smart advice. But before you can follow it, you need to understand exactly what a personal brand is. Contrary to a widespread misconception, branding and bragging are not at all the same thing.

    "Often, people hear words like 'self-promotion' and 'marketing yourself,' and they just cringe, because they think it's about boasting, and they don't want to do that," observes Karen Kang. "But creating a personal brand is really a process of education. It's about sharing information and participating in discussions about ideas. The goal is to make decision-makers aware of what skills you have and what value you can add."

    A former partner in Silicon Valley marketing powerhouse Regis McKenna (the branding brains behind Apple (AAPL) and Intel (INTC), among others) Kang now runs her own Palo Alto-based firm, BrandingPays, and has coached executives at companies like AT&T (T), HP (HPQ),and NCR on how to become known for their expertise. She also wrote a book, Branding Pays: A Five-Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand.

    Once upon a time, in the pre-Internet economy, polishing your very own brand was not really necessary. After all, if you were going to spend your whole career climbing the ladder at one company, or two or three at the most, everyone who mattered already knew firsthand what you were good at. But now that job security is a discarded relic, and most people change companies (or even careers) eight or 10 times before hanging up their spurs, it's a much different world. Each of us is probably the only one keeping track of our achievements along the way.

    "We're all free agents now," says Kang. "And that doesn't work unless people make the effort to brand themselves. Anyone who's trying to launch a project, put a new team together, or reach any particular goal needs to know who's out there with the required skills and what expertise is available."