As a result we are all extensions of the brand wherever we go. After work when we all go out to happy hour we are walking advertisements and representatives for the brand, and the way that we carry ourselves reflects back on the companies brand; if we slip up, have a few too many, or are rude it reflects back on the brand. We know that this is the case, so we all go above and beyond to act gracious when we get complimented outside of work (very frequently) or attentive and helpful if a customer has a concern. It is clear my employer views us as a physical extension of the brand.

This concept isn’t new, it’s proven, and works, but now is the time for companies to take it a step further.

It seems like everyday I read in the blogosphere about a personal brand and why you need to have a solid online identity which includes, but is definitely not limited to Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In. I always read pretty basic reasonings on why we all need a personal brand, mainly so companies can find you, you can control and own your online image, and so you can market yourself. I agree with all of these things, and I’m not here to offer any new advice on creating a personal brand; for that I recommend going to the master, Dan Schwabel.

What I am here to do is ask a question. Why don’t companies view their employees online personal brands as extensions of the companies brand?

Think about where you represent your company on the internet. Do you have your employer listed on Facebook or Linked In? Do you have a website that contains your resume?

These are primary places where we as individuals represent our employers in todays world. If you have an inappropriate photo on Facebook and your employer is listed, like it or not that photo reflects back on the company and the next time you are in a meeting with someone who has researched you, they might know about that picture of you doing body shots from your last vacation to Mexico. Yes, that is a poor example, but now let’s look at the other side; say you have a strong personal brand, you protect your online image, you blog, you tweet, you are active on Facebook and on great websites like Brazen Careerist; that online presence and your following is a fantastic venue for you to be a steward for the company, instantly adding more value to the company should you choose, or be allowed, to promote your employer.

“That sounds great! Promote us,” your employer might say, but wait…it’s a two way street.

Think of the way large conglomerates advertise their brands. Ziploc, Pledge, and OFF! are all S.C. Johnson Brands. When you look at each of those brands you know they are something different and individual, yet part of something bigger. Every time something good happens to the smaller brand, something good is happening to the bigger brand. If Ziploc has great sales, then that helps S.C. Johnson’s bottom line. On a box of Ziploc there is an S.C. Johnson logo, and on the S.C. Johnson website they feature Ziploc, even at the end of every commercial you hear “S.C. Johnson, a family company.”

Much like the conglomerates there is a mutually beneficial relationship online between an employee with a strong personal brand and their employer’s brand. If I put up on an “About Me” page laying out where I work and what I do in my day job with a logo and a link to the company, I can instantly help give credibility to my employer if you’ve never heard of them, and you might be more inclined to go visit the company. On the other side of the coin, if my employer has a link to me on a company page, it can instantly help give credibility to me as someone who is employed by a great company.

Zappos has a great start at just this, twitter.zappos.com provides realtime streaming of their employees on twitter, but I think it should go a step further. Why not promote employees with good personal brands? Photo, website link, and twitter feed, all on the companies website. Make employees comfortable being online ambassadors for the company by encouraging it and giving them the ability to reach out on the companies behalf even if it’s not their job. It’s even in the companies interest to help employees develop a personal brand online.

The best way to increase brand awareness online is being represented, and if you have a good relationship, what better people to represent you and give you presence than your employee or employer?

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I am about to take the biggest risk I have ever taken as an entrepreneur, and it’s not a financial risk…it’s about you.

Over the past two years I have written a great deal about business, personal finance, and Gen-Y, and in doing so I’ve built what I believe is a pretty decent following. I’ve tried hard to be consistent, not allow guest posts, and keep focus on my journey through life while staying both Young and Frugal. Many of you have stayed with me from the writing droughts to the Forbes issue and I appreciate it; but I want to give you fair warning that it’s all about to change.

Soon it’s no longer just going to be a soapbox for me to stand on, it’s going to be about you; and while I’m excited, I’m also scared. I’m scared because you read this blog because somewhere, somehow, my writing peaked your interest. Maybe you’re young and trying to get through life too, maybe you are older and just enjoy the read, or maybe you’re family and you feel some sort of obligation to read (don’t). The risk is that I will make you not want to come back, the risk, as vain as it sounds, is that I am this sort of glue that keeps you here and without it being only me you’ll lose interest. I don’t want that to happen.

A couple of months ago I mentioned how I was going to shake up my life a bit by pursuing a new Young and Frugal, and on April 1 (no joke) I will be “flipping the switch” on the new Young and Frugal, and I’m extremely excited. I want you to stay on as a reader and one day contributor, I want to challenge you to do things you never thought possible. I want you to help me prove to the world that it is possible to be not only Young and Frugal, but Young, Fun, and Frugal.

Will you accept the challenge?

Want more info? Be sure to fan our Facebook page for more details and inside information!

With the new site, comes a new subscription method. You can (re)subscribe below. We are only initially launching in the cities below, but plan on expanding in the future!

If you are interesting in accepting the challenge for your city, please be sure to let us know! (Note: this does not guarantee that you will be selected)

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Too often people pour their souls onto the Internet, whether it be a friends wall posting or a blog post, and once it is up, it is permanent. A snapshot of how you were feeling at one point in time has been published to the world, and you can’t change your mind on it. We are the first generation that grew up with social media, our lives are practically public information from politically incorrect jokes we write on a friends facebook wall, to the many many inappropriate pictures of us that other people took and tagged us in. For many it won’t really matter, but for those with big dreams (specifically business, political, or athletic) it may.

For the last 7ish weeks I’ve obviously taken a bit of a hiatus from writing. Some of the hiatus had to do with writers block, some had to do with a lack of desire to write, but a good bit of it was actually me censoring myself. As a writer who draws from his own life experience for just about every post, it’s now much harder to write since my co-workers know about this site. Now, if I write about a bad day at work, even if I write about what I’ve learned from it and try to spin it in a positive light, I could come off as complaining (something no one likes). If I write about how I really messed something up, I could (or would in one instance) become a direct target for all the blame, when I shouldn’t be.

Protecting your personal brand online is fairly easy, and protecting it offline is too, but when those worlds collide it becomes a much different world. These instances are even becoming newsworthy: someone on disability posts facebook pictures of them skydiving, someone fires an employee then updates their status telling the world why, or my personal favorite someone gets a job offer then tweets about it saying how the money is great but the company sucks. I’m not saying to have two different “brands” but think of it like this: your work persona vs. your out at the bars persona. Your friends may not care how you act at work, but your boss may care how you act out at the bars.

Over the coming years, as more members of Gen-Y run for office, and further succeed in business and sports it will be interesting to see the scandals that come from all of this, but I think the bigger question is, as Gen-Y becomes even more of an influence will anyone care about poor decisions posted on facebook or twitter? After all we’ve all had them.

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When I first started receiving an allowance, I did what any kid in my shoes would have done…I stole my brothers old velcro neon yellow wallet, and from then on I would walk around with my wallet just like I had seen my dad and brothers do. A wallet was like magic, you open it up and money comes out. “I’m a big kid now,” I thought to myself.

I went everywhere with my wallet, but I soon came to realize that my wallet was always empty. A couple years later, in an effort to make extra money, I began helping with my brother’s lawn business; but my problem remained…I never had any money for what I wanted and I was always broke. This especially hurt because I was now doing hard work with my brothers instead of the little made up chores my parents would pay me for to rationalize my “allowance.”

“I’m broke” is a funny thing for a 10 year old to say, and even though I still had full access to the ATM (Bank of Mom and Dad), I cherished being able to say that I bought stuff with my own money, so I had to figure out the problem. I remember looking around at all the stuff in my room and figuring out where all of my hard earned money went. I saw tons of crappy toys that I never played with, a pair of really cool sunglasses that I could never wear because I wore regular glasses, and a bunch of baseball cards in drawers. I realized that I had spent money on a ton of stuff that I never used and/or didn’t even like, and to make matters more ironic, I had bought most of it on impulse because I had my wallet with me and thought “Why not?”

After I came to this childish epiphany I began saving by hiding money around my room. Before I knew it, I had enough money to buy the new baseball glove I wanted, and when my parents realized I had started saving, they took me to the bank to open a savings account.

As children it’s easy to realize why we save. We set our savings goals for the short term in the form of the items we want. We save up, get our new toy, and set our eyes on the next savings goal, but as with everything in life, our perspective changes as we grow older.

I went a long time just making deposits to that savings account, in fact even at 16, when I finally did touch it, I managed to not waste all of it lifting my Jeep (OK, I did waste most of it). Soon after spending way too much money on my Jeep, I set my sights on homeownership. And for the next 6+ years I saved and invested with this end goal in mind; then when Mary and I got married, our combined savings allowed us to realize this goal.

As we grow older our financial goals change from being weeks away, to months away, to years away, to decades away. And now as I write this, financial goals are harder than ever to define. For us, goals are no longer defined by material things like a car or a house, but they are defined by ideals and the dreams of another generation that wanted to escape the workforce all together. Now these dreams that once seemed so defined are now obscure words that mean different things to different people. Words like entrepreneur, travel, and retirement.

To you retirement may mean leaving the workforce all together and escaping to some exotic beach. To me that sounds like an empty world of boredom because I don’t plan to retire in the traditional sense. I want to be just like my 89 year old grandfather who is still a highly sought after consultant; he doesn’t need to work but chooses to, and thus he remains the smartest and most quick witted person I know.

Saving without having an understanding of what you are saving for makes saving that much harder. You say you are saving for retirement but what does that mean to you? How much will it cost to live the lifestyle that you want for the number of years that you want? You want to start your own business? Awesome! How much does it cost to be an entrepreneur? You want to be able to drop everything and travel the world? How much will it cost, where will you go, what will you do? And most importantly, how long do you need to save to achieve your version of these goals?

Going through a series of questions like these either by yourself or with your spouse may be the most important time investment you make. Doing this allows you to define your goals and have a true understanding of why you save the way you do. Maybe you’ll find that in order to finance your goals you won’t need as much money as you thought so you can cut back on saving, or maybe you want to keep the same pace to achieve those goals earlier. Regardless, having a name to every dollar you save makes saving that much easier because it gives you a defined end goal.

Why do you save?

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What’s that you say? You’ve spent hours perfectly crafting every word in order to make yourself look fantastic on paper? You even read my advice on resume building? That’s very kind of you, but I repeat, no one cares, and here are 5 reasons why.

• Resumes are boring. No one wants to read them, not even recruiters. It’s a chore that takes time, and realistically the last time you did read one (instead of glance at it) was when you were writing your own.

• People are lying to protect your feelings. When was the last time you or someone you know told a friend you wouldn’t forward their resume on because it was crap? When was the last time you asked for resume advice and everyone told you it looked good? Friends think a lot of things, but very few friends will be brutally honest to help you, if no one is giving you constructive criticism try sending it to other people.

• Your resume won’t get you a job. Do you really think someone is going to hire you based on a piece of paper?

• You’re exaggerating. Everyone does it to a point, but did you really collaborate with the team on the $300 million dollar project, or did you just make copies for them? If by chance someone does read your resume, they are reading it with a skeptical eye and taking it with a grain of salt.

• You are sending it into a black hole. Applying online? Unless you have a persons e-mail address not a generic recruiting address, it will most likely never be seen by  a human eye. Even if you are sending it to a real persons address, remember it’s a chore to open it and they probably don’t want to.

With all this said, it’s true, no one cares about your resume, but you should still care. As much as it kills me to say it, resumes are still very important, and here are 5 reasons why:

• It’s not for other people, it’s for you. Your resume should be a running tally of every impressive thing you have done, and you should use it as a refresher to remind yourself of these things. It should be up to date whether you are job hunting or not, and when you accomplish something of note, write it down. You can always shorten your resume, it’s very hard to lengthen it. Know your resume backwards and forwards and be able to expand on everything on it without fumbling. Even know what doesn’t make the final cut, your resume will help you in the interview (but be careful to not only talk about what is on the resume).

• It is currently the most accepted way to showcase yourself. We are fast approaching the days when someone will say “send me your link” instead of “send me your resume,” some early adopters have already started this with LinkedIn, however, for the time being the resume is still the most accepted way to showcase yourself.

• Key words help you get a foot in the door. Remember that black hole I wrote about? There is a way out, and that is through key words. More often than not applying to a generic recruiting e-mail address will send your resume into a software program in which it will be looking for key words. If it matches the key words, then someone might look at your resume to see if you fit the bill and invite you in for an interview. So remember to use industry language. (Note: although this is my most hated form of applying for a job, I actually did get my current position this way. It never hurts, but don’t get your hopes up.)

• Be true to yourself. A little embellishment is expected but always be true to yourself and NEVER lie on a resume. Lying on a resume is career suicide and it will come back to haunt you. It is better to not get the job by being honest, than to get it by lying. Just ask George O’Leary, former head coach at Notre Dame who was forced to resign because he lied on his resume.

• It won’t make you, but it can break you. First impressions are important, and the resume is frequently someones first impression of you. While it may not make you, it can definitely break you, so in the off chance that someone actually looks at your resume, it needs to be easy to read and perfect. One misspelled word and you are through.

As Gen-Y becomes more of a staple in the work place I see a lot of this changing, particularly the accepted resume format. I believe we will transition to websites with professional bios being the standard (non-boring) way to showcase yourself. But in the meantime, I’ll continue my love/hate relationship with resumes.

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As many may be guessing that stuff is my collection of trophies from growing up. I have trophies, medals, and awards for everything. I have a soccer trophies, baseball trophies, pinewood derby trophies, a medal from a poetry contest, and tons of certificates and ribbons. It’s really quite an impressive collection, until you look closely and realize that most of them say “competitor,” and none of them say “1st place.” When I came to this realization I just started to laugh because it finally hit me. I really did get a trophy for everything I did, and I never even won anything! (OK, my high school swim team won the national championship, but I assure you I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I was an “alternate” so I could go on the trip).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I have to wonder, what do these trophies mean for my career? 

At this point in my career, I’d have to say, not a good thing because the real world has already smacked me in the face for having an expectation of a big shining trophy (metaphorically).

After my first 10 months of working I had my first formal review in which I learned what my raise would be. My boss started out praising my performance and telling me I had done a good job, and then he got around to telling me what my raise would be. I was on the edge of my seat, “My first raise!” I thought, ” I wonder what my promotion will be, Sr. Analyst!?, either way I’m taking Mary out tonight to celebrate!”

That’s about the time when my daydream came to a screeching halt as my thoughts were interrupted with ”2.7.”

“2.7 Percent?” I asked, knowing that I must have heard wrong.

“Yes”

At that point I must have given him the look of death.

“You’re not happy” he said, as I was biting a hole through my lip and trying to keep my composure.

“Well, I don’t know what you were expecting” he said in a calm, business like voice, but “I gave you the max HR would allow.”

That comment stopped me dead in my tracks, “what was I expecting?” I couldn’t answer it. I really had no idea what to expect, all I knew was that I was that I deserved praise, an awesome reward, and hopefully a pizza party afterward. At least I got the praise.

I look at that situation now and I realize that I was subconsciously expecting some sort of championship trophy (in this case more than a 2.7% raise, and hopefully a promotion) when I didn’t get it, I reacted poorly and threw my own little version of a tantrum in which I went on to pretty much tell him that if I wasn’t going to be paid what I was worth, I would find a place that would pay me what I was worth.

Lucky for me I had a really cool boss and when I called later that evening to apologize for being an idiot he laughed, and understood that I was flying blind and had nothing to base any expectations on. In hindsight yes, my reaction was EXTREMELY stupid, and I really don’t know why I was expecting more, especially when I had already survived a layoff that year.

This experience has caused me to pump the brakes a bit on my expectation for praise and rewards, I still work to the best of my ability, and I still want a trophy, I just don’t expect one anymore.

What do you think being part of the “Trophy Generation” will mean for your career?

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Today is the last day of my first job out of college. As I have written before (elsewhere on the site), I graduated 2 years ago as a cocky know-it-all, but I honestly don’t know if I learned as much in my four years of college as I have in my 18 months of work at a Fortune 500 company. Between the training I have received, the mentors I have found, and the day to day business interactions I have been able to participate in, I gained not only a great deal of knowledge which I will carry with me for the rest of my life, but also many close friends. I would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for taking me under your wings, teaching me, training me, and putting up with me on the days when I would endlessly quote lines from various movies or TV shows.

I also greatly appreciate the trust you placed on me and the encouragement you all gave me when I took on new projects around the office. This trust has served as my gold star that, as a member of Generation Y, I am stereotypically striving for. It made me feel proud to go into work and work harder to fulfill what you thought I could do.

For all of these things, and many many more, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making my time with you quite enjoyable.

For my fellow Gen-Y reading this, remember that you You Are Who You Associate With, and while you really don’t have much of a choice with who you surround yourself with at work (especially in your first job), you can only hope to be surrounded by as many good people as I have been surrounded with in my first job out of school. It’s important to remember that you are still learning, so don’t be afraid to latch on, ask tons of questions, and observe. You aren’t expected to know everything and most people genuinely want to help you succeed however they can. I have truly appreciated having this kind of support, and you’ll soon find that you have it too, you just have to remember to ask.

If you haven’t figured out by now, this is my website on which I’ve been chronicling my journey from cocky know-it-all to professional with more to learn. I mainly deal with the topics of business, personal finance, and entrepreneurship for Generation Y, and I don’t get “personal” on the site unless I can relate it to something professional. Jump in, kill some company time and have a look around if you’d like, but whether you do or don’t, please try to stay in touch.

One of the great advantages of blogging and social media is that it makes it very hard to lose contact with someone, so I encourage all of you to stay in touch. I am providing enough modes of contact for there to be no excuse not to.

Email: daniel at this domain dot com

My Facebook Profile

My LinkedIn Profile

Twitter: @danielpbowen

Coming soon-ish: DanielPBowen.com

Or, you can always Google Me (I’m number 2, but closing in on #1 thanks to my syndication on Brazen Careerist).

I hope to hear from you, and wish you all the best in whatever life hands you.

Daniel P. Bowen

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Even as we get older peer pressure is still extremely powerful. Have you ever noticed that no matter how old you are thugs hang out with thugs, executives hang out with other executives, and entrepreneurs hang out with entrepreneurs? The list is infinite! I wakeboard and I hang out with other wakeboarders, I’m ambitious so I surround myself with ambitious people… get it?

By surrounding myself with wakeboarders I am constantly pushed and encouraged to try new tricks, by joining a local running club I am pushed to become a better runner, and by making the effort to surround myself with entrepreneurs and others who think differently I am encouraged to take risks to follow my entrepreneurial dreams.

So take some time to think about what you aspire to be and do. Do the people you surround yourself with share these same goals and aspirations?  Do they want to see you succeed? Do they push you to be come better at a mutual interest?

I’m not saying to dump your friends, I have many good friends who don’t share some of my most important interests, but think about the groups or “cliques” you belong to. What are they doing to further your career and aspirations? If nothing then make the effort to surround yourself with the people who will!

What if you want to be an entrepreneur, but all of your friends want to work their 9-5 for the rest of their lives? Go find an entrepreneur! They are in every city and small town. It doesn’t have to be the CEO of a large company, it can be the owner of the local hardware store; it doesn’t matter! Walk up to that person and explain that you want to be an entrepreneur and start asking questions, set up a weekly meeting, even ask them for a part-time job like Holly at WorkLoveLife did with a local coffee shop! These acts get your foot in the door to meet their entrepreneur friends as well as give you an understanding what it’s like to run a small business.

The internet is the most useful place to start. Search for local groups on Meetup or LinkedIn and find the group that fits your interest. For startup culture a local Dallas Entrepreneur, Alex Muse, co-founded a great blog group called SpringStage that is a coalition of bloggers who write about startups and startup life, it truly is a great resource.  Use Twitter and start following those you admire; I love how I’m able to follow Guy Kawasaki and Lance Armstrong, both are people I greatly admire! 

What are you waiting for!? Surround yourself with the people you want to be like and others who share your passions to ensure that you make your own dreams come true!

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Since that time I have learned a great deal, and I admit to not knowing half as much as I thought I knew when I graduated.  But on top of learning a great deal, I’ve seen a great deal.  I’ve seen my older coworkers be too comfortable in their positions, I’ve seen them take themselves too seriously, and I’ve seen them continually be out of touch with the real world.  I’ve seen what it’s like to work for a large company, and I’ve seen what it has done to the creativity of my coworkers.  So in their honor, I’ve compiled a list of 23 things I know at 23 that I pray I remember at 43.

1. Just because your salary grows doesn’t mean your lifestyle should
2. Physical fitness is the best way to mental health
3. Don’t stop dreaming
4. The Industrious Gain Wealth, While the Wealthy Remain Industrious
5. Allow your inner Michael Scott to show Edit: I know he’s an idiot, but he always puts people first.  That’s what I meant.
6. Think Different
7. Welcome other ideas
8. Look down, that’s the furthest you’ll fall.  Look up, how high will you fly?
9. If you don’t let people blow you away, you’ll never be impressed
10. Make time for the things you love, they make you who you are
11. Laugh
12. Don’t be afraid to say no
13. Stay in touch with college students, they are where innovation comes from
14. Dream Big
15. Public Companies are where innovation goes to die
16. Share ideas: If you’re scared you’re going to get screwed you’re never going to get laid
17. If someone wants it more, let them have it, if you want it more, compete for it and prove it.
18. Observe behavior
19. Keep It Simple
20. Stay flexible and open to change
21. Stay Informed
22. Surround yourself with those you strive to be like
23. I can (still) Change the world

What do you want to make sure you remember in 20 years?

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Over the last year I have tried to share some of what I have learned through a variety of posts, most notably: Getting a Job: The Resume, Getting a Job: Networking, and My Mandatory Class Proposal.  But a few months ago I was contacted by a reader who told me to read a book that covered similar issues, so I took the opportunity and read it.

Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World, by Lindsey Pollak is a book that I wish I would have read two years ago, but I’m just as glad that I read it now.  

Geared toward the of short attention spans of gen-y, Lindsey writes 90 small blog-like bites so it’s easy to digest and not overbearing to the reader.  In fact, she goes so far as to include a directive to action at the end of each tip to ensure that you take time to think about it and use it more as a step by step tool to your success instead of reading it like a typical book.

Covering a range of topics from what I have recommended (reading the newspaper, getting a professional e-mail address, and watching classic movies) to creative approaches to networking and interviewing like getting active in your alumni association before you graduate and creating a “brag book” of all of your achievements, Ms. Pollak successfully conveys a process that isn’t easy to teach or even learn.  To drive the points home she often inserts interesting success stories from real people who applied these tactics.

Knowing how cocky I was when I graduated, I already knew it all and I probably would not have read this book, but if I could go back in time and force feed this book to who I was then I would do it.  With that said, the advice in the book isn’t just relevant for recent grads looking for their first jobs, it’s highly relevant to those young and old looking to learn or brush up on the basic business and life skills such as networking, resume writing, and various self improvement projects (Tip 59. “Perform Five Minutes of Stand Up Comedy” is something that I have always wanted to do).

If you are worried about getting a job, interviewing for a new job, or even if you recently got laid off, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the book, and I can guarantee you’ll learn some new tricks.

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