I was pleased to facilitate a table of women in a discussion about using your online presence to create and sustain your personal brand. Held at Cisco's San Jose campus, the event was  part of Cisco's Connected Women series of professional development gatherings for women from Cisco, Citrix, Intel and EMC.

My top 3 take-aways:

1.  a personal brand is what you want people to know about you to help connect you with the opportunities that are right for you 2.  embody your brand -- show-it-not-tell-it -- on a daily basis, using your online presence at social sites 3.  demonstrate your expertise, your thought leadership, the talents you bring, how you operate by sharing news and information and being helpful

My GlobalNiche team member Tanya Monsef Bunger joined me at the event, pictured here.The roundtable event aimed to provide actionable insights into specific topics while enabling attendees to meet other women who are interested in that particular topic.

There were 10 tables of 10 people, each with their own topic, so the evening was like attending a miniworkshop at a conference. Work-Life Fit. Mentoring. Thinking Big. Developing Cool Designs. Thinking Outside the Box. Career Development. You can imagine I made my table all about Twitter. Twitter is my answer for everything. I’m joking.

I wanted to make personal branding all about Twitter — and social media in general — since it’s the most effective way to form and communicate your brand widely.

But many of the corporate women at my table weren’t on Twitter and had their reasons for not wanting to show themselves and their expertise much online, including in company bulletin boards and chats.

That’s a different blog post for a different time. It’s a serious issue.

I got a lot of questions about stalking and security, but none about the opportunities of being optimally online.