Is Marketing Yourself As A Brand Right For Your Career?

"Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Is this right for your career?" asks 85 Broads, the high-powered global women’s network, on its Facebook page today. My answer:

It seems like the question should be "what possible reason could you have for not being a distinct, knowable, findable professional entity?"

Social media strategist Tara Hunt replied too, and said "I owe the lion's share of my career success to personal branding", despite struggling with the term and being criticized for her self-promotion.

I think Tara Hunt's right that personal branding is a loaded term and the act of it doesn't come easily for women, nor does becoming visible always bring positive attention for women.

But none of that makes it less a valuable, meaningful, self-actualizing way to operate.

Online Self-Loathing & Surveillance

Personal branding online sure gets a bad rap, like this New Yorker post by Tony Tulathimutte, which warns us "You Are What You Tweet".

He's talking about the self-loathing variety of personal branding online -- heavy on the self-censorship with no mention of integrating what matters to you with the vulnerability that actually connects us as people,  both concepts we emphasize at GlobalNiche.

Tulathimutte concludes, "The more immediate threat may be the surrender of private identity: to perfect the total image of an impressive life, we prune off the parts of ourselves that can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t be seen."

Meanwhile, The Guardian writes about the psychological effects of surveillance. Research shows being surveilled fosters distrust, conformity and mediocrity.

I can't help noticing that the most deleterious effects of being watched seem to track with the defensive, inauthentic personal branding approach Tulathimutte writes about. As if when we reveal ourselves voluntarily we're avoiding actually being seen.

"Science can lay claim to a wealth of empirical evidence on the psychological effects of surveillance...indiscriminate intelligence-gathering presents a grave risk to our mental health, productivity, social cohesion, and ultimately our future."

That's serious business not to be taken lightly.

But do we have to approach the online presence we build as if we are being watched against our will? As if all we aim to communicate is 'successful' conformity (which is of course mediocre and gives the rest of us nothing to connect to).

Can we make being seen (when we choose it, that is) a path to our own resilience?

+++

Sarah Kendzior makes a related point in Al Jazeera September 9, "The danger of data: Not the information, but the interpretation".

She writes: "Our online self-expression - selective and self-censored, complicated and contrived - is being mistaken for the summation of our being. The great existential fear is no longer not knowing who we are. It is not getting the chance to find out." 

Media Empire Building For Women, What We Can Use Our Platform For & Why We Need To

Regarding an on-going kerfuffle in an area I follow pretty closely (media & journalism plus gender disparities in those fields), this post by magazine editor and journalist Ann Friedman on media empire building has a lot of lessons in it for those of us building platforms and what we can use them for, and why we need to.

We need them for leverage, if we're thinking bigger or one day will. We need them as evidence. If we're women, many of whom are relegated to supporting roles in our fields, we need our own platforms to grow strong as marquee figures.

"I’m doing pretty well at building a following for my work that’s mine alone, not reliant on the individual outlets I write for. But I’ve never approached a publisher or editor-in-chief to ask for my own vertical, or the funding to create my own mini-empire."

When she decides to pitch a funder to finance her own media empire, Friedman writes, "There will be footnotes about my own Twitter following and the number of newsletter subscribers I have and my proven ability to cultivate a strong editorial voice."

Linda Janssen's Emotionally Resilient Expat

Thrilled with a new release from my expat publishing kin! I've had the pleasure and privilege of working with and getting to know both these formidable women in the past half decade. Author Linda Janssen just released via Jo Parfitt's Summertime Publishing the masterwork The Emotionally Resilient Expat: Engage, Adapt and Thrive Across Cultures.

The book is filled with personal stories from experienced globalists and cross-culturals  -- Third Culture Kid pioneer Ruth Van Reken, global nomad authors like Tina Quick, global mobility experts, psychologists and family therapists, expats, and me!

Its aim is to provide you with practical tools, techniques and best practices to live a healthier, more positive, emotionally engaged, culturally connected global life.

This book promises to be an enduring and proactive guide to the unique challenges of living in a wide, wide world -- experiences that often have the power to take apart and rearrange a person on an almost molecular level. I've been there. So glad TERE is now available for global operators everywhere.

Massive congratulations Linda and Jo.

Brainstorming With Darlene Crane To Advance Careers & Lifetime Earnings For Women

Own your value and take it to market.

That's the message Darlene Crane wants to bring to women in business. She wants us to pursue our greatest ambitions with clear purpose. Seek power, and use it to generate benefits for the broader population. Crane urges us to "embrace ownership, and entrepreneurship."

All messages that resonate with me, a newcomer to the business scene but already feeling like an old hand at embracing ownership of my ideas and content, and very familiar with the entrepreneurial spirit.

What also resonated was what Darlene says too many smart, educated women are missing. The opportunity to drive the future economy, and win their own healthy financial life in the bargain.

I met Darlene Crane, the business growth and sustainable finance consultant at the second meeting of her new discussion and action group -- named, for now, "The $700K Club" -- which aims to gather women to create a supportive new business culture. Thanks to Cynthia Mackey, the founder of the web strategy company Winning Strategies, who invited me, and to Tiffany Roesler's Women Inspire Tech group which brought me and Cynthia together.

The first meeting in February teased out this statement from Darlene:

The recent media blitz on the stalling of gender equality and leadership pushed me to challenge the focus on behavioral issues. Could the challenge be valuing our inherent talents, education, experience and ambitions to move markets and create the opportunities we seek? Imagine if the lifetime earnings of women with college and graduate degrees actually earned as much as a man with a B.A. Each woman could on average increase lifetime earnings $700,000 -- which could finance a small business, start saving for the long-term and purchase real property. If all 30.1 million women with degrees in the U.S. earned an additional $700,000, we would contribute $21.5 trillion to the economy. With a thriving economy families from all communities could experience improvements.

Opening the discussion sponsored by edu-tech entrepreneur Mary Jean Koontz at SOMA Central tonight, Crane referred to Sheryl Sandberg's LEAN IN advice. "We're still asking permission or trying to fix ourselves. We need to reframe the discussion. "

"Women are stalling in this economy and there's a huge economic cost to tolerating this situation. This is a positive response to that."

"Product is what makes money in the future. It gives you IP and control."

Takeaways:

• Product is what makes money in the future. It gives you IP and control.
• Ask how can you make money so you can have freedom of choice.
• Economic freedom through ownership ensures meaning is a part of your work.
• If women pursue their ambitions know that it can effect the marriage relationship.
• If you're married, get a line of credit ASAP and pay it back to show you have a track record of repayment. Get a bank credit card in your name only.
• Find your public voice. Honor who you are, on a spectrum. Practice in safe spaces. Call on your trusted network to help find your authentic voice.
• Ask for what you want.
• Build on your strengths AND get comfortable doing the uncomfortable.
• Don't knock bank debt, which is long term. Get to know a banker now.
• Women need to learn the venture capital model. Investors are pattern matchers. You need to develop a network to groom you to get private investors attracted to your idea and do an offering.
• Young women are at risk. If you don't define your career by 35 you're cut off at 50.

Resources for women business owners mentioned in the meeting: Women's Initiative. Working Solutions. Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center which helps you bank borrow. Score Small Business Development Centers. Catalytic Women. Astia.

Darlene's initiative aims to have quarterly meetings which are invitation only. If you're interested to join the $700K Club, please contact her directly.

"POWER OF MONEY" was scrawled on the white board in the SOMA Central recreation room when we arrived. It fit Darlene's notes for the evening. To be continued.

On the GlobalNiche Bookshelf: Global Dexterity. Reinventing You. The Impact Equation.

Building your global niche is a 21st century skill. For work. For life.

International business, human resources, the future of life & work bestsellers and new releases from Harvard Biz Review are stacking up on our bookshelf at Pinterest.

Finding cultural effectiveness. Career reinvention through social media and your own content. Achieving impact via your platform and social networks. Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.

These are all GlobalNiche mainstays going mainstream. Click here to tweet about this.

What does it mean to be a global worker and a true "citizen of the world" today? asks author Andy Molinsky in Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process.

It means you're able to adapt your behavior to conform to new cultural contexts without losing your authentic self.

"Not only is this difficult, it's a frightening prospect for most people and something completely outside their comfort zone," writes Molinsky, an associate professor at Brandeis University's International Business School. He straddles the psychology and organizational behavior departments.

"What's needed now," he claims, "is a critical new skill: global dexterity."

Global dexterity? It's what we do here.

This critical 21st century skill is exactly what we've been pioneering at GlobalNiche and expat+HAREM group blog and the Expat Harem book before it, as we have striven to make the limbo state and high cultural stakes of expatriate life a strength instead of a weakness. How to navigate your surroundings in culturally appropriate ways while also honoring the truth of who you are. That's global dexterity. Thanks to Andy Molinsky for the term. Back in 2009 we couldn't find many people talking about it at all, so we came up with our own term: "psychic location independence."

At GlobalNiche we've also come to the conclusion that this approach to a dexterous, global version of yourself  increasingly works for people everywhere, whether you're 'actually global' or not. You might be in your own backyard and need to navigate your surroundings in culturally appropriate ways and have your own, distinct truth to honor. You might not have a passport but can still benefit from becoming a global operative. In fact, being globally aware and globally functional has become an imperative in today's connected world.

"Use social media to build connections" is one of seven steps branding expert Dorrie Clark lays out to reinvent yourself professionally, in  Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future.

"Show what you know" is another of Clark's steps. She suggests you use your content to show the world what you care about.

Again, sound familiar? It should. Using your content online and off to get where you want to go is exactly how you build your global niche. It's why the GlobalNiche program at its heart is about content strategy. Your content and your online presence is the key to creating your place in the world.

Another title that is particularly useful for people building online presences to reach offline goals is The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise? by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Brogan is a favorite of ours here at GlobalNiche.

The impact of our ideas is a function of the quality and similarity-but-distinction of the ideas, our ability to reach people and be understood, trusted, appreciated.

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

C = Contrast – having ideas similar to existing ideas, yet different enough to stand out

R = Reach – connecting higher numbers of people to your idea

E = Exposure – knowing how frequently you connect people to your ideas

A = Articulation – ensuring that your ideas are easily understood

T = Trust – based on multiple factors, such as credibility and reliability

E = Echo – connecting to your community in a personal way

As Brogan explained in a fun January 2013 Twitter chat I participated in (#BizBookChat a virtual book club for the actionable books community by Alyssa Burkus), "The Impact Equation is about how to turn your goals into ideas, & how to get those ideas absorbed and actions taken."

To build a platform, Brogan says, "you've got to find how you can best tell the story and where you can reach the people you hope to reach."

"Start where you are," Brogan counseled us in the fast-moving Twitter chat. "But look for growth. Move your chips to the next table. Strive to reach who you need to reach."

Start where you are. That's your only option. Oh, and start your evolution today.

Evolution is exactly what Nacie Carson urges in The Finch Effect: The Five Strategies to Adapt and Thrive in Your Working Life. The Portfolio.com blogger and founder of TheLifeUncommon.net says it's your best bet in today's high-pressure economy.

Traditional career strategies spell professional extinction, she writes, but the fluid new gig economy offers tremendous potential for anyone willing to adapt.

Carson's five steps for ensuring professional success are all part of the GlobalNiche mindset and skill set.

• Adopt a gig mindset.
• Identify your value.
• Cultivate your skills.
• Nurture your social network.
• Harness your entrepreneurial energy.

Among many other notable titles on the shelf about navigating the world today is Mitch Joel's Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It. I hope to tackle this sometime soon. In the meantime, tell us which books on your shelf echo these 21st century life and work skills.

New World Order Deja Vu

"We have built around us a borderless global society, without the need for proximity to connect," announces social business strategist Bryan Kramer in today's post "A New World: Proximity Redefined". "Social, mobile & online today has redefined how proximity inhibits our abilities to connect anywhere & anytime."

Globally unbound. Unconfined by traditional limitations. That's exactly what I've been saying and demonstrating for many years as an expatriate devoted to using social and mobile as a survival skill and tool.

But borderlessness is not just about using the tools. It's a mindset. And it's a need.

At GlobalNiche.net I teach others how to adopt this stance -- which, as Kramer points out, is a future work skill -- by committing to an intentional online life in which we see ourselves as unlimited, and build our social capital and connect to our broader networks for personal and professional development.

Kramer calls it a new world order.

That's exactly what I termed the phenomenon in 2009, of common interest and experience connecting us more than geography, nationality, and even blood when I introduced the group blog ExpatHarem.com to discuss the issues of hybrid identity, global citizenship, mobile progressivism, Third Culture.

With wider adoption of the technologies, more people can be here now. They join those of us who have been operating with this mindset for a long time already because it's a survival skill.

Interview With Yesilist About A Global Niche As Sustainable Lifestyle

"The new era is about believing in yourself and creating your own niche," writes interviewer Ergem Senyuva of Yesilist, Turkey's guide to sustainable living, after talking to me and Tara Agacayak. "GlobalNiche helps people realize their visions and reach their dreams." Read the entire interview here. Moving to a new place can be challenging for many people. What are your suggestions for them? Build your safety net before you need it -- that means creating a global niche even before you move to smooth your transition. Connect as soon as possible with potential peers in your new location. Take care of your personal and professional needs, you’re the only one who knows what they are.

Can you please briefly tell us how you became part of Global Niche.  Even though we’re from the same San Francisco region in California, we met in Istanbul through a professional women’s group in 2009. Then we took an expat professional women life design class together and learned more about our commonalities, and noticed how our backgrounds complement each other. Anastasia is a media person with experience in Hollywood and New York, and Tara is an information tech person who designed databases for the US Department of Defense. Combining the media and info tech, we were both early adopters of social media used as a survival tool -- especially Twitter, which brings the world to you -- so in 2009 we started talking to groups of international women about becoming visible in the world through a professional web platform. That’s an online presence meant to support you as a professional person.

GlobalNiche.net was an off-shoot of Anastasia’s cultural producing work at the ExpatHarem.com site for global citizens. ExpatHarem was a group blog and discussion site, and GlobalNiche was meant to take all that philosophy and put it into practice. We wanted to give people the practical skills and tools they’d need to thrive. Tara came on as chief operating officer in 2010 and in 2011 we started having monthly webvideo conversations to discuss the issues of being at home in the world. Now we have a program and two monthly live webvideo events and a private Facebook support group for people in our program.

You live in different continents and different time zones. What are the obstacles you run into while you are running the operational aspect? We use Basecamp, an online collaboration software, and Skype for weekly conference calls. We’re connected daily on an asynchronous basis through Twitter, email, and the other social web services we use. We have an ambient awareness of the other’s activities through all that social media. Even though it’s nice to be able to work around the clock by passing the baton back and forth to each other, the biggest obstacle is often the time zone. We can’t always connect when our energies are at similar levels.

GlobalNiche operates online. Do you sometimes believe you are missing the warmth of face to face communication? How do you compensate for it? Live web video has the warmth of face to face communication. We use the Linqto app for that. We also make the effort to see each other and members of our community when we are in close proximity to each other, with planned and impromptu GlobalNiche meetups around the globe. We’ve had gatherings in San Francisco, New York, Istanbul, London. We also know that virtual life is just as real as actual life, and what’s most important is not the exchange of molecules but rather the depth of our human connection.

How do you see Global Niche evolving over time? This is a solution whose time has come, and the problem will only continue to grow as people move around and the economy remains weak. We’d like to continue to listen to the needs of our community, develop even more robust products and services to help them overcome these huge life challenges. We hope to continue creating a nurturing environment, providing tech-savvy, globally-aware, culturally-sensitive support. We’d love to add some live bootcamps to speed people through the process. Get them on their feet, and doing what they love, right where they are.

Use Everything You've Got

"I crave change," writes UK blogger and expat extraordinaire in Sydney, Russell Ward. "I used to be something of a change embracer.  Over the past decade, I changed location, house, even my passport. It's not always been smooth sailing, often emotionally fraught, generally riddled with unknowns. On balance though, change has been a good thing and key to the process of moving forward.  I've found one aspect of my life difficult to change. My working life." I hear you, Russell. 

Thanks for inviting me to comment on your post to share a little about my work on this topic. That's what I've pasted below.

You're right, location independence is a very attractive concept.

I started following the lifestyle design and location independent movements a few years back, because they were pioneering a solution to a problem I'd long had as a serial expat/repat/person who moves a lot and has what I call multiple cultural personalities.

How to bridge all those worlds, how to be myself and live a life that feels right even if/when I have no support around me to do that. Ultimately, solving this problem has become my work.

I pinpointed that location independence works best for people like me by allowing us to remain where we are and yet live a life unlimited by that.

We're here for lots of reasons. Kids's school. Close to family. Some choice we made in the past that we're not ready to dissolve today. Lots of reasons.

But just because we're here and it's not the ideal place for us to pursue our dreams doesn't mean we have to defer our dreams. We've got a lot of tools available to us today that help us hurdle limitations like geography and time zone and culture.

Anyway, that's a bit of why Tara and are focusing on helping people live better where they are.

How?

By reshaping our opportunities with the social web & mobile tech. We created an empowerment program which takes you through the process we've developed based on a combined 25 years of expatriatism, and our professional backgrounds in culture, media, info tech and psychology.

Sound like quite a stew? Yeah, creating your global niche is about using everything you've already got.

I am rooting for you, Russell, and everyone else who wants to do what they love no matter where they are.

Location Independence Begins At Home I Tell HSBC Expat Explorer

My tip for HSBC's Expat Explorer guide:

In career & personal life, location independence begins at home. No matter where you are for how long, keep contributing to your communities.

Commit to social media/mobile technology to stay centered.

See the tip and many others from expats around the world.

What's A Digital Nomad?

Would consultants or other professionals who are constantly traveling be considered digital nomads? This is my answer to the question on Quora.

I think the main definition of digital nomads is being people who make their nomadic lives work through digital means.

Those techniques are being picked up more and more by people who are not really nomadic, but merely in transit, or location independent in general.

Like me.

I live in a particular place, but I partake of a wider world of opportunity through digital means, and envisioning myself as independent of my surroundings.

We all have the potential to be digital nomadlike, or use digital nomad strategies to make our lives more seamless.

Elections When You're A Digital Global Citizen

This appeared in The Displaced Nation, November 7, 2012. Global citizens follow the US elections closely; some even see American politics as a spectator sport. For today’s post, we asked Anastasia Ashman, an occasional contributor to the Displaced Nation, to tell us how she felt about the 2012 elections. An expat of many years and an active proponent of global citizenship, Anastasia recently repatriated, with her Turkish husband, to her native California.

Rather than drifting away from the American political process when I was far from my fellow citizens, it was during an expat stint that I became most deeply involved.

My involvement had a displaced quality, of course.

I have always been on the edges of the American experience, hailing as I do from the countercultural town of Berkeley, California. The first time in my life I owned and brandished an American flag was after 9/11. It felt like a homecoming after a lifetime of being the outsider.

Even now that I’m back in California, my political involvement continues to have a displaced quality because I know what it’s like to be a citizen on the front lines of our nation’s foreign policy. For most Americans, the issue of how the rest of the world perceives our country is distant, amorphous, forgettable — but not for those of us who’ve lived abroad.

Clark for President!

I’d discovered Wesley Clark on television after 9/11. A four-star general, he was talking about the world we’d suddenly plunged into like a polished, collected and thoughtful world-class leader. It was easy to feel a kinship with the philosopher general even though I’d grown up in a household that vilified the military. Instead of activist or escapist pursuits, I chose to join him in geopolitical chess.

During the months between September 2003 and February 2004 when Clark competed in the presidential primary to become the Democratic candidate, I campaigned for him from afar. My email inbox soon filled with security warnings from the U.S. Consul urging Americans to keep a low profile.

If I had been able to get my hands on a campaign poster back in 2003 and 2004, I wouldn’t have displayed it publicly in my Istanbul apartment window. We were invading Iraq, and Istanbul was the site of four al Qaeda-related terrorist bombings that November. Avoid obvious gatherings of Americans, the emails cautioned. No mention of red, white, and blue “Clark for Democratic Candidate” campaign posters plastered on your residence — I had to extrapolate that.

Instead, I became active in online forums and wrote letters to undecided voters and newspapers in numerous states for my choice, the former N.A.T.O. Supreme Commander Wesley Clark. That was all I could do.

Obama for Re-election!

I’ve now been back in the USA for a year and have followed this election cycle, like the last one, mostly via social media. Online is an ideal place to become disconnected from echo chambers you don’t resonate with, and to stumble into rooms you don’t recognize. Both have happened.

But for the first time in the American political process, I don’t feel displaced. I feel like I am right where I belong.

Maybe it’s the San Francisco environs, which, although they may not match my concerns, don’t rankle too badly. At least I’m not in Los Angeles being asked to vote on whether porn actors must wear condoms. (They should, obvs!)

I feel less displacement in this election because of the resonant connections I’ve made online in the last four years or more. I’m in open, deep geopolitical conversation with Americans, American expats and with citizens of other nations, all over the world.

During this election I’ve been using my web platform, my digital footprint, to gather political news and opinion, enter discussions, and raise awareness. I’ve been reconciling my patchwork politics by weaving together who I relate to, and what I care about, and what sources I pass on to my network and what conversations I start. I now know that I am

• A woman from an anti-war town who campaigned for a general!
• A Hillary supporter who’s backing Barack, and
• An adult-onset Third Culture Kid who understands how and why Obama’s Third Culture Kid experience confuses the average American.

What I have chosen to share on social media during this election cycle is a processing of all that makes me a political animal. I feel I have participated in this election cycle as the whole me, and that is all I can do.

I’ve shared that I care deeply that

• Independent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama, citing climate change as a top issue of our time.
• A top Republican pundit spanked Mitt Romney’s cynical talk of 47% of Americans as freeloaders as the talk of a shallow campaign operative rather than a necessary sophisticate at the top of national politics.
• Certain business owners have felt they could tell their employees how to vote and threaten that a vote for the wrong candidate would jeopardize their jobs.
• Women’s rights were under attack.

I am buoyed that these abominations are leaking out and being countered. I was edified to hear others share my disapproval of eligible voters who choose to throw their votes away.

I have been able to be an active digital world citizen during this election cycle, someone who votes for the bigger picture, not just at the ballot box, but in everything I do. And that feels like home to me.

Being A $100 Changemaker With Other Digital Nomads & Global Entrepreneurs

Natalie Sisson of The Suitcase Entrepreneur asked me to be a $100 Changemaker in her $100 Change Program. It's an ecourse designed to get you to take action on your dream idea, project or business to make it a reality in 100 days or less.

I’m joined in the program by 100 other entrepreneurs, digital nomads, thought leaders, TED speakers, authors, and artists from around the world, to share what it really takes to start something, make it happen, and create real impact and success.

Other changemakers include Chris Guillebeau, Danielle LaPorte, Janet Hanson, Chris Brogan, Michael Stelzner, Cameron Herold, Steve Kamb, Laura Roeder, Jonathan Fields, Clay Collins, Pamela Slim, Amy Porterfield, Corbett Barr, Lewis Howes, Pat Flynn, Nathalie Lussier, Dane Maxwell, Christine Kloser, Adam Baker, Johnny B Truant, Pam Brossman, Derek Halpern, and Alexis Neely.

 Here are my answers to the $100 Change interview.

If you had $100 to start a creative project how would you spend it? Get Internet access. If I had that already, then invest in more access (like wi-fi, or a mobile device to facilitate using the web for more things, in more places).

What is your daily ritual for setting yourself up for success? You may not be ready but you'll be so much further along (and figuring it out!) if you simply get started right NOW.

You'll also be in community with your peers, and your clients will be lining up when you launch.

Build those relationships years before you "need" them.

What I'm doing now with my startup GlobalNiche I've actually been doing for years but didn't make it available to as wide an audience as I could have way back then.

Get started, go wide. Share the process. Don't wait til it's perfect, or when you know everything you need to know. That day will never come.

What is worth paying for? I'd pay for nitty gritty details and big picture advice from professionals who specialize in certain areas.

Legal advice, accounting guidance.

The opinion of a high level editor on a massive writing venture.

A consult with a brand messaging expert.

These kinds of things can unfreeze you, set you on the right path, and help you avoid lots of pain in the future.

What's a saying of yours we can put on a poster? A nugget I can offer from GlobalNiche's combo of microbrand building, creative entrepreneurship, global community development: polish your ideas in public.

That's how you're going to build a borderless community you love, and tap into a deeper sense of yourself.

What key methods do you use to stay focused on your priorities? Committing to making sense of what I do.

I'm finding the last mile of taking my ideas to market has been about GOING BACKWARD to meet my larger community.

Letting go of the coinages and jargon I love but that confuse the uninitiated.

For so long I've been pushing forward and existing on my own leading edge -- which is necessary to evolve in your field -- but now I need to make sense of how I got here and why any one else might want to join this journey.

I think of it as leaving a trail of bread crumbs they can follow.

In committing to simplifying my message, and charting a path others can follow, I am both getting to the heart of my thinking, and reaching far more people.

How do you stop fear from allowing you to do your best work? Do your thing in public, and invest in yourself.

Volunteer to get access to opportunities no one is offering you otherwise (for instance, if you want to go to a conference but can't afford it and Twitter-attending won't suffice, ask to work there. You'll make contacts and open new doors.)

Don't keep your best ideas on a shelf -- you want to be known as the person with all those good ideas.

Keep them flowing, more will come and they'll be even better developed.

Learn the basics of pitching your ideas to people more established than you are. If you nail that etiquette (know their work, which part of your idea is right for them, and you're able to be brief), you're going to find success.

Tech Makes The Global Citizen, or Repatriation = Relocation With Benefits

San Francisco may be a tech-forward location but that's not why I've increasingly been turning to technology to help me be where and who I am today.

As a globally mobile individual, I rely on tech because of all the moves that came before this one. I rely on tech for my total, global operation.

++++

This originally appeared in The Displaced Nation, August 22, 2012.

Today’s guest blogger, Anastasia Ashman, has been pioneering a new concept of global citizenship. Through various publications, both online and in print, and now through her GlobalNiche initiative, she expresses the belief that common interests and experiences can connect us more than geography, nationality, or even blood. But what happens when someone like Ashman returns to the place where she was born and grew up? Here is the story of her most recent repatriation.

I recently relocated to San Francisco. Three decades away from my hometown area, I keep chanting: “Don’t expect it to be the same as it was in the past.”

Since leaving the Bay area, I’ve lived in 30 homes in 4 countries, journeying first to the East Coast (Philadelphia Mainline) for college, then to Europe (Rome) for further studies, back to the East Coast (New York) and the West Coast (Los Angeles) for work, over to Asia (Penang, Kuala Lumpur) for my first overseas adventure, back to the USA (New York), and finally, to Istanbul for my second expat experience.

My daily mantra has become: “Don’t expect to be the same person you once were.”

With each move, my mental map has faded, supplanted by new information that will get me through the day.

Back in San Francisco, I repeat several times a day: “This place may be where I’m from, but it’s a foreign country now. Don’t expect to know how it all works.”

What a difference technology makes (?!)

Today my work travels, just as it did when I arrived in Istanbul with a Hemingway-esque survival plan to be on an extended writing retreat and emerge at the border with my passport and a masterpiece.

I knew from my previous expat stint in Malaysia that I needed to tap into a local international scene. But I spent months in limbo without local friends, nor being able to share my transition with the people I’d left.

This time is different. Now I’m connected to expat-repat friends around the world on the social Web with whom I can discuss my re-entry. I’ve built Twitter lists of San Francisco people  (1, 2, 3) to tap into local activities and lifestyles, in addition to blasts-from-my-Berkeley-past.

I’ve already drawn some sweet time-travely perks. To get a new driver’s license I only needed to answer half the test questions since I was already in the system from teenhood.

After Turkey’s Byzantine bureaucracy and panicky queue-jumpers, I appreciated the ease of making my license renewal appointment online even if the ruby-taloned woman at the Department of Motor Vehicles Information desk handed me additional forms saying: “Oh, you got instructions on the Internet? That’s a different company.”

One of the reasons my husband and I moved here is to more closely align with a future we want to live in, so it’s cool to see the online-offline reality around us in San Francisco’s tech-forward atmosphere.

It doesn’t always translate to an improved situation though. Just as we are searching for staff to speak to in person at a ghost-town Crate & Barrel, a suggestion card propped on a table told us to text the manager “how things are going.”

So, theoretically I can reach the manager — I just can’t see him or her.

So strange…yet so familiar

It took a couple of months to identify the name for what passes as service now in the economically-depressed United States: anti-service. Customer service has been taken over by scripts read by zombies.

When I bought a sticky roller at The Container Store, the clerk asked me, “Oh, do you have a dog?”

“No, a cat,” I countered into the void.

He passed me the bag, his small-talk quota filled. He wasn’t required by his employer to conclude the pseudo-interaction with human-quality processing, like, “Ah, gotta love ‘em.”

What I didn’t plan for are the psychedelic flashbacks to my childhood. I may have moved on, but this place seems set in amber. The burrito joints are still playing reggae (not even the latest sounds of Kingston or Birmingham) and the pizza places, ’70s classic rock stations (Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” anyone?). The street artists are still peddling necklaces of your name twisted in wire. Residents are still dressed like they’re going for a hike in the hills with North Face fleece jackets and a backpack.

A bid for minimalism

The plan is also to be somewhat scrappy after years of increasing bloat. My Turkish husband and I got rid of most of our stuff in Turkey in a bid for minimalism. We camped out on the floor of our apartment in San Francisco until we could procure some furniture.

If it was a literal repositioning, it was also a conscious one — for a different set of circumstances. We’d expanded in Istanbul with a standard 3-bedroom apartment and “depot” storage room, and affordable house cleaners to maintain the high level of cleanliness of a typical Turkish household. In California, I intended to shoulder more of the housework.

I was soon reminded of relocation’s surprises that can make a person clumsy and graceless. I should have kept my own years-in-the-making sewing kit since I can’t find a quality replacement for it in an American market flooded with cheap options from China — and now have to take a jacket to the tailor to sew on a button, something I used to be able to do myself.

When the lower-quality dishwasher door in our San Francisco rental drops open and bangs my kneecap, I recall the too-thin cling wrap and tinfoil that I ripped to shreds in Istanbul, or the garden hose in Penang that kinked and unkinked without warning, spraying me in the face.

New purchases

“We’re getting too old for this,” my husband and I keep telling each other as we shift on our polyester-filled floor pillows that looked a lot bigger and less junky on Amazon. (We were abusing one-day delivery after years of not buying anything online due to difficulties with customs in Istanbul. Cat litter can be delivered tomorrow! Pepper grinder! Then I read about the harsh conditions faced by fulfillment workers in Amazon’s warehouses and cut back.)

One of our first purchases Stateside was a television. Not that we’re going to start watching local TV, but we did flick through some satellite channels. It’s something I like to do upon relocating: watch TV and soak up the local culture like a cyborg.

Since I last lived in the US, reality shows like COPS — where the camera would follow policemen on their seedy beats — have gone deeper into the underbelly of life, and now there are reality shows about incarceration.

The Discovery Channel has also gone straight to the swamp. That’s where I caught a moonshiner reality show featuring shirtless (and toothless) men in overalls called “Popcorn” and “Grandad.”

It’s an America I am not quite keen to get to know.

But I can take these reverse culture shocks lightly because my repatriation is part of a continuum. It’s not a hiatus from anything nor a return home. I’m not missing anything elsewhere, I haven’t given up anything for good. Being here now is simply the latest displacement. Today is a bridge to where I’m headed.

Talking To Cigdem Kobu's Creative Solopreneurs

Excerpt from a profile in Cigdem Kobu's A Year With Myself program for introverted creative solopreneurs.

Are you location independent by choice, or necessity? Why?

Both!

First by necessity when I lived very far from my culture, removed by thousands of miles by people who knew me, who spoke my language, dislocated from my professional fields. Swallowed up by my foreign-to-me surroundings.

Then, as I realized the power of location independence, I became location independent by choice.

I believe that we all can tap into that same power no matter where we happen to be. If you think about it, we’ve all felt like a fish out of water at some point in our lives, and for too many of us, that’s an on-going feeling we have today. It doesn’t have to be that way.

That’s what GlobalNiche.net is about. You could say we teach people how to be globally unbound -- by choice.

Although expats and international types have more reasons than most to find a way to operate independently of where we happen to be physically, I see now that we don’t even have to leave home to do it.

It’s not about being mobile physically (and working on a beach in Thailand, as many in the location independent and lifestyle design movements talk about).

It’s about being okay with where you are, and setting up your life so you can be fufilled and, unlimited by your surroundings.

With today's economic uncertainties no matter who or where we are, we all have to embrace an enterprising view of ourselves -- a way to operate unlimited by the options around us.

We’re really lucky to be part of a trend toward entrepreneuring and indie creative careers, as well as using the social web and mobile devices to help us achieve what I call “psychic location independence”.

We don’t have to be a tech expert or social media guru to build a micro-yet-global base of operations with a professional web platform and virtual network for continuing education, professional development, and a close-knit but world-flung set of friends. We can be digital world citizens and achieve a cutting-edge state of being.

You believe that our metamorphoses choose us. Can you explain that a little?

I said this after a year on Twitter, back in 2009. I noted that the major undertakings of the year hadn’t rated a 2008 resolution. I didn’t plan any of them.

Nilofer Merchant, a cutting-edge entrepreneur I admire and author of The New How and the upcoming book Social Era Rules, recently tweeted, “Once you find your purpose it pulls you effortlessly into the future.” That’s definitely what happened when I opened a Twitter account and followed the trail of my interests out into the world of all possibility.

I was on soul-auto-pilot. Suddenly I took charge of my own web presence, an intention I hadn’t held, a vision I didn’t see, and a plan I don’t recall making.

All it took was that first microblogging step that lead to a curated-webpath to what I now recognize as my specific interests and larger intentions. I was pulled into my future, effortlessly, and without warning!

I was virtually attending conferences on publishing, interactive media, women’s issues, and participating in live webchats on branding, innovation, and literature.

I became a joiner and a beta-tester, signing on for an experimental blogging course before I even had a blog, and volunteering for a life design course for expat women entrepreneurs that helped me hone my vision and introduced me to my present day business partner, Tara Agacayak.

I experienced a reawakening of my inner student to learn exactly what I needed to know, and fresh direction on how I might contribute to the future of my communities.

I have seen this same thing happen with other people on Twitter too, so if you’re willing to dive in and let your metamorphosis choose you, that is the first place I’d recommend you go.

How do you help other women change their lives?

By sharing my own journey, and how I’ve combined my talents, interests and experience to create solutions for myself.

The largest solution I have to offer is the power to change our own lives by building a custom platform to operate from.

Also, by seeing in them what they could be, and telling them, which gives them the opportunity to see themselves and build their own place in the world.

The Native American Medicine Wheel card for hummingbird really resonates for me. The hummingbird is an agile creature which withdraws nectar from flowers and pollinates them at the same time, making them productive and viable.

I would love to be that force for the women in my life.

Entrepreneurship & Social Media As The New Women's Movement

I'm seeing mainstream articles tackling my topics, especially at the intersections of women/invisible groups, entrepreneurship, platform-building, work/life and social media.

Like this "social media is the new women's movement" at the New York Times, last week's "entrepreneurship is the new women's movement" at Forbes.com, and the power of networked reality at The Atlantic last month.

As Tara Agacayak says, "What I'm seeing is the trend toward more customized, flexible, personally fulfilling work with the technology to facilitate it."

There's this "Why work-life balance is a crock" at CBSNews.com: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57342505/why-work-life-balance-is-a-crock/

Women leaving mismatched corporate culture for work on their own terms:http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/08/entrepreneurship-is-the-new-womens-movement/

Seth Godin calls platform building "a longterm shortcut": http://archive.feedblitz.com/720389/~4194314

Microsoft buys Yammer for $1.2B for the same reason GlobalNiche urges us to enter the conversation on our topics:

"You cannot underestimate the power of "working out loud" with social tools. So many conversations get trapped in the one on one world of email and instant messaging. With open sharing, new ideas emerge, experts are found, and teams are formed from the groundswell. Serendipity happens when conversations become public and others are encouraged to listen and contribute their ideas, all within the safety of the company walls."

http://socialmediatoday.com/jimworth/559907/why-yammer-worth-12b-microsoft

people "who reluctantly socialize via online methods due to skill or cost or personal disposition may well find themselves *left out* of conversation." http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/social-medias-small-positive-role-in-human-relationships/256346/

Plug in better (includes "unplug from disconnection"):http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/plug-in-better-a-manifesto/252873/

(altho the below link is hardly mainstream, it's exactly what GlobalNiche is all about): "disadvantaged groups have tools to reach out and organize across geographic boundaries" http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/04/23/sherry-turkles-chronic-digital-dualism-problem/

And thanks to global women's health doctor Nassim Assefi for noting that the forward-looking approach to life and "the American Dream" mentioned in this article is what I show people how to do in my GlobalNiche program and in general! We are way on the cutting-edge. http://www.more.com/women-new-american-dream

Gauging My Team's Working Style & Ambitions With Camille Smith

Great Google Hangout session today with Santa Cruz-based Camille Smith from WORK IN PROGRESS COACHING and the GlobalNiche team. Camille's our September 2012 guest in the GlobalNiche video chatroom, and will be offering a special performance, possibilities & authentic relationships program for our community.

We were guinea pigs today so we can demonstrate in September how Camille’s assessment and counseling has revealed our own diverse working styles and ambitions and shown how we can work best together.

Life Hacks Of Mobile Progressives Can Inform Everyone Else's Dislocations & Transitions

Location independence begins at home! ...some informal notes from a discussion I had with a TEDx future-of-work organizer, Joan Blades, the founder of moveon.org

At global niche, we're currently working on putting years of theory and practice into a marketable solution. Basically, positioning the life hacks of internationals and other operatives who have found themselves at cultural disadvantage as an approach that many many people can benefit from -- from those who've never left their hometown but have dreams they think are impossible there, those who've been retired prematurely or otherwise lost their jobs, to those who just graduated and face a bleak job market, to WAHMs and others in nontraditional work settings.

There is also the  dislocation of favorite identities, ppl close the book on them when they no longer are convenient or the prevailing culture. The lost aspect then gets buried as if it can no longer be alive, like ppl who enjoyed salsa dancing in college, or reading poetry all summer -- and no longer do. But with a global niche they can keep a toe in/reenter that conversation, follow the latest news and advances, meet up with ppl who are more active in these areas than they are (on travels, or in their current location).

When we speak of all the different worlds we belong to, for non-expat types this could be gap between work and life balance...you are not in the worlds and cultures you feel you belong. But you can be, regardless of where you are.

Mobile progressives come at social media from the side of really needing it to live our lives with possibility. not as a plaything. Our globalized selves easily use/adopt tech to continue to be global. But learning to be global is what people who come from the other side are struggling with.

Expatriates Are Experts In Resilience

A few excerpts from interviews I've given and articles I've written:

Being an expatriate, you’re naturally a person in transition.

Your worst days can leave you feeling unmoored and alienated. Your best days bring a sense of your agile nature and the qualities that make you unique from the people who surround you and the people back home.

Working toward an understanding of what it will take for you to feel your best in your environment I think is extremely worthwhile. Your answers perfectly define you and the more closely they are incorporated into your business plans the better chance you have of career success abroad.

After five years in Malaysia and 8.5 in Turkey, I've made the limbo state of expatriatism (not belonging to your surroundings but having to navigate them in culturally appropriate ways AND honor the truth of who you are at the same time) a strength instead of a weakness.

With my career disrupted by international relocations and watching the traditional media business being disrupted by digital and social media, my particular m.o. has evolved into gate jumping. That’s a combination of reaction to obstacles in my environments, and a commitment to not be hindered by “what is”.

Gate jumping can work for expats of all kinds.

Here’s how I do it: Fearlessly operating without borders instead of accepting my off-the-grid, situation-mismatch as a paralyzing disadvantage.

Time zones, language barriers, geographical distances, old-school thinking and collapse in my industries of media and entertainment, these things don't stop me.

Being an early adopter of Twitter, I use it for continuing education like virtually attending conferences and entering high level discussions in my topics of interest, to networking and meeting my peers around the world.

One of the reasons I founded GlobalNiche.net is that I have noticed that the majority of expats disappear when they go abroad rather than come to local and international prominence through their expat lives as I have done.

Even fewer women expats accomplish this in Muslim countries or have managed to raise the voices of multiple other women in a country known for its censorship. See the details of this particular adventure in my piece The Accidental Anthologist.

I don't think any of this is easy to achieve. But I do think it's integral to surviving, and thriving.

+++

Linda Janssen has written a book on this topic called The Emotionally Resilient Expat. Jo Parfitt's Summertime Publishing is releasing it in 2013.

Recommended By Top Expat On Twitter In Telegraph UK

Thanks to former banker, veteran expat and expat coach Evelyn Simpson for recommending me and my GlobalNiche partner as top expats on Twitter to readers of The Telegraph UK.

Simpson suggests following me on Twitter if you're interested in knowing more  "about using technology and creativity to get the lifestyle you want wherever you are."