Establishing a "brand" for a school or an educator is very much the same as the sales world attempting to "brand" a product in a positive light. In Eric Sheninger's book Digital Leadership, he has a chapter devoted to the term branding. Branding is how we put our mark on society - how others view us. In the educational leadership role, it is pertinent for the school leader to reveal to the digital community the culture and achievement of the school which will then yield returns via support and possibly funding.
When I first became principal at REACH High School eight years ago, each summer I promoted to the community and beyond the culture and mission of the campus. I asked for support in the form of donations in order to encourage attendance and achievement from the students as well as to reward the staff. Relationships have been developed over the years to where one half day's work during the summer yields enough donations to easily provide for about ten drawings at the end of each week for students with perfect attendance as well as the five students of the week. Larger prizes are used for what would be considered more substantial accomplishments. It has taken many years to evolve to the rate of success the repeat donors offer the school. The process could have substantially been sped up through sharing electronically with a much larger and wider audience being reached,
It is up to us, as educators, to portray to the electronic community what we and our schools stand for. It is up to us to choose our own brand. If we do not choose the way we wish to be portrayed, someone else will easily determine this for us on the receiving end of electronic sharing.
