Mom was right about minding your manners. Although behaving appropriately and properly seems to be lost these days,  it is still the best way to behave, especially if you care about your personal brand and personal marketing.

This evening I was at an event about social media. Lots of people were tweeting and in this context that is acceptable behavior. However, lots of people, especially a very obnoxious man behind me, were chit-chatting during the panel presentation. This is not acceptable. It shows lack of respect for the speakers, the audience, and very poor manners. Of course, this is no way compares to the congressman shouting "you lie" to the president or the obnoxious rants of a self-absorbed, self-important rap/pop star (I am omitting the names because you know who I am talking about and I am sick of giving them any more publicity).

Manners and considerate behavior are in free fall in our society and we should be concerned from a personal branding and marketing perspective, among others. Why? Because someone who has bad manners shows him/herself to be very self-absorbed, even narcissistic. And do you want to do business with someone like that? In the end, we always want to do business with people we like and maybe even respect. Let me tell you, if I ever see the man whom I mentioned  was seated behind me, I will not want to meet him. And why should I? He has shown me through his behavior that he lacks common courtesy.

<strong>The takeaway is this: mind your manners to show the world your best self, and in the process you will help improve your personal brand perception.</strong>
On Monday, Kami Huyse discussed this very issue on her blog, <a class="wp-caption" title="Personal branding and character" href="http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2009/09/beyond-personal-brand-to-character.html" target="_blank">Communication Overtones</a>. She came to a different conclusion. She thinks the overemphasis on personal branding has allowed character to fall by the wayside. I think society and culture have more to do with that.  I was thinking about it this evening and really, I don't think you can fault personal branding at all. In fact, as I said before, if you care about your personal brand, you should aim to be civil, be polite. It is better to be known for your ideas, your experiences than for your crassness and lack of manners. Right?

What are your thoughts on this subject?