That time when I publicly told everyone to start promoting themselves
Some years ago I gave a keynote in a “Behance Portfolio Review” explaining the importance of self-promotion and why there’re no excuses to not have a portfolio.
It was a short 20 minutes talk where I tried to put concepts and actions so that the designers that were present had something concrete to apply into their work.
People left happy and everyone took notes. As a personal experience, it was amazing… but I have to confess that I was pretty surprised about the lack of knowledge regarding the subject. Self-promotion seemed to be difficult for some of them.
During my research, I watched other colleagues talk about the same subject and it was very disappointing that none of them explained the importance of self-promoting the work or how/where to start. In fact, instead of providing useful tools to the audience they were really promoting themselves.
Something very unethical if you ask me.
So, when I was preparing the keynote, I put myself one condition… I had to be able to talk about it without using my own personal background or experience.
The reason was simple, if I wanted to succeed… and if I wanted to really help my fellow colleagues, I had to avoid professional arrogance at all cost.
Besides all that, I also wanted to gave them something useful. Something they could apply.
That’s why I didn’t talk about how I promote myself. My tactics or solutions are tailored to my specific needs and I didn’t want them to end up being confused or tempted to use my own measurements… First of all, it wouldn’t work on them and second, more importantly, promotion on this level needs to be the result of a process of self-discovery, something really personal that they had to figure it out by their own.
So, having that in mind and due it was a Portfolio Review type-of-event, I tried very hard to find a balance explaining why having a portfolio matters, why a personal brand matters and why promoting what you do justified all of the above.
All of that without putting the spotlight on me but on the audience’s needs instead.
I think it went very well. The comments that followed were positive and the ones who reached me after the event really changed the way they talk about the things they do.
The story is far from ending, though.
There’s still a lot left to say about self-promotion and I’m thinking this blog can be a nice place to write down more eloquently other concepts, tips and explain further my opinions.
Self-promotion is, in fact, something I struggle constantly and I think we can all learn from each other.
Thanks for reading.
Pablo Zarate is a Designer and an Independent Art Director from Buenos Aires, Argentina. You can buy his posters and get in touch with him on Twitter & Facebook.
