I have a confession. I want to give back more to the community and make a genuine impact, but I find it hard to do so during my work week.

So, imagine my delight when at a leadership meeting in Dublin, our Junior Achievement partners offered us the chance to engage with about 40 students from local schools. The topic? Right in my wheelhouse – building a personal brand. That said, a roomful of students ranging in ages from 16-18 were not my typical target audience and at one point (when the students shouted out in unison that “tax evasion” was the personal brand of at least one celebrity!), the adage of never working with children or animals did come to mind! That said, it certainly broke the ice and we were well on our way.

We split up into small groups with each of our leaders working with four students to create their “personal brand elevator pitch” (or for the non-marketing folks reading this blog, a 2-minute introduction to themselves which they could give to prospective employers or others). We got the students talking about what was unique about them and while they started out being quite shy, they quickly got into the swing and became really engaged in the process.

The Avanade leadership team loved the session and quickly recognized that we got as much out of it as the students. I’d encourage you to see what the students and the rest of the Avanade leadership team had to say here but David Oskandy, Avanade’s General Counsel summed it up nicely when he said: “I left the event with a glow!”

As for me, one of my lessons learnt was that you don’t always have to separate giving back from your work life so I’m on the lookout to see how I can keep combining the two!