“Professional” does not mean “corporate”.

Amen, sister! I was corporate for a looooong time (too long). Although I loved the shoes, I didn't like the fact that I couldn't really be myself. I mean I was, kind of, but not entirely. I just didn't fit in. Now that I work for myself, I TOTALLY fit in. Isn't that cool? But I hear you about being professional – that's always important if you want to make a living. Being professional does not mean being boring. At all. As evidenced by you!

Tell it. I graduated last year and have pledged always to be professional and never corporate. This post is a great breakdown of why

I feel very grateful that, because of the internet, I stand a good chance of never having to have a corporate job (especially thanks to people like you!) We already have to spend 10+ years in school, why prolong the torture with a rubbish job?

Here's to not being corporate! *chink*

Like I said last night on Twitter, I originally started out thinking that I had to be a bit airbrushed and not rock too many boats but the longer I go on, the less I believe that. I'm increasingly moving towards a more authentic me. I think it's definitely easier if you start out that way, it does feel a little scary to be changing things up after nearly 3 years of blogging.

So, just to make sure that I get this….corporate means cold, unfriendly & uncreative, which bites. Being yourself, yet respecting others is the ultimate goal, right?

I hate pants with zippers, working 9 to 5, and promoting other peoples dreams. I am so not down with corporate!

You have it 100% correct.

That “kind of me, but not entirely” feeling was what always got to me. The other people were nice! But not My Folks.

*chink* Cheers!

Congrats on having the smarts and opportunities to avoid ever having to wear button-up shirts and chat about subjects you don't care about!

I bet it is, but I know it's gonna be super-awesome for you. Have you found you got more response from people with the more authentic stuff you've written so far?

You got it bang on.

Yes!
I actively take OUT anything corporate-ish that sneaks in to my tone or anywhere on my site (2 years in a gov't office can really sink in).
Being professional is also about admitting your strengths and weaknesses so customers/clients/partners know what to expect.
I'm on a mission to get makers-of-crafty-goodness to *get* this, in their very fiber! You aren't a machine cranking out identical items and this is exactly why people will LOVE you!
Me and my casual shoes totally love this post.

Yes yes yes! Funnily, corporate environments are super-duper bad at admitting their faults, and in a lot of cases it makes them much less professional.

[...] then I read Catherine Caine’s article on Professional v. Corporate. While I agree with the majority of what she has to say, I do honestly wonder a few [...]

The phenomenon of regular people becoming their own brand is one of the things I love so much about the internet right now. Branding is no longer exclusively for corporations and celebrities. When we reveal more about our real selves, it makes it easier for our right people to find us.

My blogging style was was very bland, neutral, non-controversial, and impersonal for six years. Changing things up didn't work well for me, so I finally ended up just scrapping the previous six years of blogging and starting over from scratch. It's scary too!

Holy crap, your new website design is, well, awesome! It's lovely.

I agree with you 100%. You don't have to be corporate to be professional. I'm happy to say that I've never been interested in working in the corporate world and never will go there, but I used to think I had to be a certain way in order to get the high paying clients. But in the end, I don't really want to pretend to be something I'm not all day long just for a paycheck.

I think corporate is awful. However, stuff that is too far outside people's frame of reference they won't respond to. Speaking our truth somehow needs to meld with speaking their language. (Without our audience in one sense we don't exist.)

Ooh, interesting thought. I've assumed that there are already enough people like me that they'll respond without me having to meld much (and so far it's true). But you're right, you might have to adjust your frame of reference six or seven inches to connect with your Right People. No more, though.

Thanks!

That pressure of “but if I'm not a certain way, how will I get big clients?” is scaryhuge. But not as scary to me as the idea of being so boring that NO-ONE hires me.

Me too. It's possibly one of the reasons I delayed so long in starting my website… when the dominant paradigm was niche sites I was not interested.

Hiya

I heard you and Jade talking about this in the discussion posted on her website. It struck me as important too and I had a few ideas. Right on about being yourself. I've wanted to be more of myself my whole life. But the issue is a lot of us are out of practice. It's liberating but scary at the same time because we're used to operating in boundaries. Anyway I'm writing a post about this and I'll send through the link soon. Nice one

Looking forward to it, Ali. Love to encourage people to sing with their own voice.

*HUGS!* Okay, it's official. You ARE psychic. Well, we all are, but you know what I mean.

Thank you for saying this – it's exactly what I needed to hear today.

Tho' I think I may have some additional thoughts which will be fitting nicely into my current blog post. Hope you'll stop by – I'd love the input.

Of course I will! I've been reading all your posts but not doing much commenting now. Let me know when it's up!

Does professional include basic punctuation skills?

For me, yes. I don't trust writing without a touch of proofreading.

Awww… thank'ee's!

Here it is.
http://www.anencouragingbird.com/2010/06/21/man…

When I saw your “Unstoppable geek army” twitter post, I had to stop by and see if you were talking about your “Huge honking idea” from the Remarkable Marketing forum.

You weren't, but any excuse I get for stopping by is a good one!

I totally agree with what you are getting at, as long as your target market isn't corporate. If it is, then I suspect there would be issues letting it all hang out 100% at all times. I'd tend to think of it as the FTC or FDA… You can say just so much before you get in trouble. Once you cross the line, all bets are off.

Now if you're market isn't corporate, then lock, load and fire!

Wow, I guess it's been too long since I've checked in here. I love the new site design! I tried to be corporate all through my 20s. I thought that that was the only way to succeed, and I confused being corporate with being professional. But it wasn't me, and it didn't occur to me until about 18 months ago that this pretending to be something that I wasn't went hand in hand with my lack of career success. Fast-forward to the present, and I find myself able to be professional, while still dropping an F-bomb here and there and letting my hair grow a little longer than my former boss would've been comfortable with. Great post Catherine.

I agree with you here Gwen. I've worked the EIGHT to 5 (yuck) and was totally bored with it.

Being yourself and following your passions is the way to go!

Hello there Sergeant-Major Tim and thanks for dropping by!

I think that even if your market IS corporate, you have more latitude than most people think. Chris Brogan works for large corporate clients, but his style isn't corporate. Would MY style suit corporate clients? Well, I'ma few days short of quitting the Day Job where I have always used a slightly toned-down version of Brand Catherine and they are dropping no end of hints that I'd be welcome back if it doesn't work out here.

I'm not much on being corporate and not being myself. I don't go out of my way to piss anyone off but I am not willing to be other than myself. I'm professional, successful and very capable but not corporate. I'll probably get flamed but I think the “dress for success” thing that often gets taught tends to stifle individuality and creativity.

Thanks Trever!

I'm going to guess you have more fun as well as more success too.

You won't get flamed for that HERE… this is the home of delightful weirdos and I don't believe any of us are three-piece-suiters.

Of course now I am going to have to write a post about how to be preceived as professional without using any of the corporate cues…

You'll have to show the “perhaps too far” side too. Situations like it might be a clue you've gone too far when people cannot be downwind of you.

I have seen the desire to be individual stray to the other side too. Not corporate and not professional.

Heck, someone was walking down the hall at work the other day in flip flops, a dirty wife-beater shirt and flannel pajama pants with beer logos. Not something that even whispers “professional” to me.

Yessss.

Tomorrow is Guest Post Wednesday, gives me plenty o'time to write the follow-up. Thanks for the thought-provoking comment!

As someone who escaped the corporate world, I loved this post! Unfortunately for me, my writing skills were honed within the paradigm of 'corporate communications' – eeeek! You can imagine how challenging it is for me to break down all those skills I developed in writing 'bland, impersonal, conventional, neutral, politically correct and diplomatic' copy.

I love all the amazing people I have connected with through the internet this past month who are helping path the way for me to break free from my 'training' and embrace my own voice. Because I completely agree with you that success moving forwards is how well we can 'own' who we are.

I was always so afraid of revealing all of myself, because that is like corporate suicide. Now I've got permission to embrace it, reveal it, sing it from the roof tops, place it in big neon flashing billboards…its exhilirating!

Thanks for your continued encouragement and support for this process Catherine – you totally sparkle

Good for you! I fight daily at the day job to break a lot of the rules of “corporate” documentation policy. Some I can't because of legal but I think I've had a positive impact in my own corner of the world.

In my own time, I write like I speak — except slower

Keep at it!

- Maura

Sure. I understand… But I believe while Chris isn't typically corporate, he either tempers his talk to a degree (I can't remember any f-bombs) or is honestly towards the border, but not crossing the line.

It seems to me that there's a lot of life left before crossing the line, and that the risk may be to go overboard in one direction or another. If it's really you, and not done for sport, then by all means play the pole dancing, f-bomb, live your truth card, but if it's not–then going that way is just as problematic.

I'm sure we're in 100% agreement with being 100% authentic whichever side of the fence it falls!

But your new stuff is great.

Oh, absolutely. Trying to be the Alternative Edgy One if you're innately conservative is just… weird. And not effective.

I think the stress for a lot of people comes from thinking that corporate clients are the only ones that could be had. If you're not serving them, then how can you do business? they think. My answer is “with all the other people who don't respond the the corporate style either”.

Oh Corporate Comms how I despise you. My biggest frustration at work was our old Corp Comms officer. I started trying to write engaging, READABLE articles for the newsletter about IT service management and she would turn them into snoozefests. Booooo.

Mandie, whatever the inner struggle with copy diplomacy, none of it comes through in your writing. It's delightful!

My biggest joy in the Day Job was writing emails about change management that were so entertaining people forwarded them to others. Success!

Yes. Exceptional point.

Why did I just get the image Mt Dew vs Starbucks? I dunno either, but thought I'd share (wait, this isn't twitter!)

Mountain Dew is advertised as the anti-brand, isn't it?

Exactly…and both corporate.

A very safe and non-threatening brand. More proof that there are multiple methods to defur a feline…

True enough. I call last word before bed ;-b

Well, I was never *wildly* unauthentic – it's always been a recognisable version of me. And I do still tone it down – I swear a lot more in real life than I do on my blog, for example. But I'm getting braver about being more openly opinionated, and the more opinionated posts often get a lot more comments. The one I did on art wank was like that.

I loved that post!

Thank you!

I feel I've understood and read what you are talking about here for years, and I can definitely say that this is one of the best, most clearly written articles on the matter in like, forever

So I'd say I'm definitely professional, but my corporate side does shine through, only in the sense that I like having conversations with other people, particularly members of the opposite sex, who enjoy wearing uncomfortable footwear

[...] from the squillions of comments and tweets and such, a lot of you agree that corporate and professional aren’t the same thing. Many of us don’t want to be corporate… but all of us want to be [...]

Hello Arthur and welcome! What a wonderful website you have, I plan to spend a half hour poking around in it today.

Thanks for the compliments. And don't worry, liking people in the uncomfortable footwear is totally fine.

Excellent article, Catherine. And I love the website design.

I'm definitely a recovering corpaholic. Like MissMandie, I'm still working on breaking those corporate-speak habits. I was not as smart as TreverJClark and didn't get out so quickly. But, then again, what I learned there I can apply now – just in my own voice – once I find it.

I think those of us who market to corporations just need to realize that “corporate” people are people, too. Why do we have to talk to them, or they have to talk to us, as if we weren't all pulling on our pants or pantyhose one leg at a time?? I think (hope) change is coming in the corporate comm world, just slowly. Thanks for a great post!

[...] “Professional” does not mean “corporate” – A little rant about the difference. [...]

Love it! Within the crafting community, there seems to be a growing pressure to make things look so slick that everyone's crafts end up looking like something you can buy at the latest big box indie shop! This is a corporatizing of the handmade. That's fine for folks who like that kind of business model, but the rest of us should have confidence in our own creations and our ability to be professional.

SUCH a good point, Brenda. Does anyone really enjoy listening to corp-speak?

Isn't that so ironic? Part of the charm of handmade for me is getting a feel for the person who made it, and the super-slick ones just don't do that.

P.S. You sell beautiful clothes!

[...] I already have a post about this, but things are best learned through repetition: using WordPress.com or Blogger or any other hosted blog service may seem like an awesome deal. Free is an awesome deal. For high schoolers and hobbyists, perhaps, but you are a business. You are professional (note: professional doesn’t mean stuffy). [...]

[...] • Catherine Caine’s take on Why “Professional Does Not Mean “Corporate” [...]

when I hear the comment to “be professional” at first it confuses me. Then I see it as an act of intimidation. No one can put a feeling or meaning to the words. It is presented with a subtle warning.
“Be Professional” stiff upper lip old boy, suck it up, don’t complain, make the most of it, do what you’re told, be a team player, cooperate or get out,
It always leaves a person confused as to how to react, or what is meant.
Consider the person saying it. Ask what it means for them to “be professional”
It is a snarky catch all phrase that puts a person on the edge without a parachute.

I hadn’t thought of it that way. Interesting perspective!