Written by Destiny Henschel

On Monday, October 21st, Concordia University Chicago’s (CUC) College of Business Professor, Elizabeth Dellegrazie, lead an interactive workshop for students, faculty, staff, and members of the community. Teaching at CUC for 11 years, Dellegrazie immediately established her credibility to her audience. Throughout her whole workshop, she continued to ask members in the audience about their own experiences and she guided them towards leading the discussions.

To start off, Dellegrazie explained differences between a personal brand and personal branding. She explained a personal brand is your own “bundle of talents,” that are given by other people. It is what they see and think of you. Whereas personal branding is what you choose to present to the world. These aspects are under your control. Dellegrazie explained the importance of having your online and real-life personal brands matching in our social-media driven world.

After explaining the types of brands, Dellegrazie had the audience work independently to plan their personal brand. To begin, the audience was told to choose a team, workplace, or service event. Then, the audience was told choose five skills that they have learned or mastered at that place of work. After brainstorming, the audience was instructed to work with another person in the room that they do not know, and to explain their work to them. As part of this interactive workshop, the audience members were collaborating and expanding their network of people.

One final point Dellegrazie made was to use storytelling in your interviews and conversations. These types of examples will make you stand out from your competitors. For example, if you excel in one aspect, use specific instances that you have already experienced. Thus, each member in the audience was able to expand their network.

All in all, audience members were really able to engage in the personal brand workshop with Dellegrazie and some even mentioned they were able to take some information away from the experience.