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Yesterday, I took my dad out to a Michelin guide restaurant in Venice to celebrate a recent milestone (he's a tough client, having been a restaurant owner himself!).
Around the second course, the owner stopped by our table, and we got talking.
He was weirdly excited to see us. He mentioned, casually, that he has almost no Venetian customers anymore. Very few Italians. Almost entirely international.
I grew up in Venice, and I remember running through its streets and being able to get from point A to point B without swimming through crowds of people 🏊. I go back 2-3 times a year to visit my dad and my family. And every time I return, it feels a little less like home and a little more like a theme park.
The streets are the same, the canals are the same, the architecture hasn't changed, Venice has some of the strictest conservation laws in the world. You cannot paint, build, or alter anything in the historic city without permission. The brand identity is protected to an almost extreme degree.
Because of this, Venice is one of the most recognizable places on earth. The identity and aesthetic are flawless, and the brand has lasted centuries (great for Instagram, some might say 🙄).
But somewhere along the way, the city optimized so hard for its image that it forgot who it was built for. Locals can't afford to live here. The businesses that served them are gone. What’s left is fully catering to a revolving door of new people, not for those looking to return a second time.
This is the tension I keep thinking about:
Venice did the identity part perfectly, a brand manager would be delighted: Absolute consistency. Zero visual compromise. Centuries of coherence.
But who is it for?
And it got the community part completely wrong. A brand that optimizes for growth but stops taking care of the people who keep coming back eventually becomes... well, hollow. Beautiful, but empty.
The most visited city in the world and one of the least livable.
There's a lesson here for anyone building a brand: protecting and growing your reputation is not enough. You have to keep taking care of your community. The ones who were there before all the new audiences arrived.
Otherwise, you end up with a city like Venice, where a restaurant owner can't remember the last time a local sat down for dinner.
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I can't stand seeing brand copy so obviously AI-written or social media gurus sharing their "one-pagers" on how to automate content with Claude.
In-house social teams and founders need to be careful.
Mediocre writing is no longer just boring... It’s everywhere, and now it's suspicious 👀
Our radars are ON. People will assume it's AI-written and keep scrolling.
If you look at the list in this image, you’ll see the "tells." The words that don't signal AI, in my opinion, but a lack of effort.
But simply deleting "delve" or "tapestry" from your vocabulary isn’t the solution. It’s just a band-aid 🩹
But I have hope because there's a new opportunity.
The rules for not sounding like a machine go deeper than grammar and syntax.
AI is designed to be agreeable, it'll be generic and avoid friction.
But YOU're not that agreeable, are you? You have your own POV.
To stand out now, you need to:
- Have a unique perspective that only you could have (no one needs to like and agree with you, and that's OK). You want to attract the right people, not everyone.
- Be specific, anything generic is suspicious (and quite frankly, boring).
- Be imperfect in your writing, you don't need perfect structuring and clear bullet points. Make it readable (no one wants long text blocks) but not perfect either. Find a middle ground.
- And pleaaaase... Kill the hyperbole. "Game-changing" usually isn't. And there are too many masterclasses out there.
To me, anything polished now feels fake (or anything starting with a 🌟🚀🎯🛠️ ), and "raw" feels trustworthy.
The old rulebook reigns supreme: you need to truly speak to a person (your audience) and stand by a perspective.
Not everyone needs to like you. You need to be bold, unique, and true to your brand.
What do you think?
A little late to post this, I'm writing from a very hot (36C 🔥) Milan, but some things are worth posting late! Last week, I led a workshop for Glovo's LeaderSHE program, and the virtual room did not disappoint. 71 women and tons of honest conversations, building a genuine professional brand.
I ran a live poll asking which mental roadblock hits them hardest. Most picked fear of failure, more than perfectionism, fear of visibility, and not wanting to seem arrogant, combined.
The room wasn't short on talent or ambition. It was short on permission to be seen failing on the way to something great.
And that's exactly why personal brand matters more than ever right now. In an age of AI, generic content is everywhere. What cuts through isn't polish, it's a unique point of view only you can have. Your POV is the one thing that can't be automated.
We spent the session covering three acts:
Act 1: Know your worth.
We started where most personal brand conversations don't, with the internal work. Mapping strengths, defining your USP, and naming the imposter voice that convinces talented people they're not ready yet.
(Spoiler: 70% of professionals feel it. Including senior executives. You're not the exception.)
My tip? Reframe feeling unqualified as leaving your comfort zone, you're growing and learning, and that's always uncomfortable. If you never felt unqualified, you wouldn't be trying anything new.
Act 2: Make your work visible.
Quiet competence is invisible. Promotions, projects, and opportunities often don't go to the most talented person, they go to the person leadership thinks of first. This is someone who developed a brand, not only based on visibility, but on substance.
We talked about how to talk about your wins without sounding like a LinkedIn stereotype, and how to build a profile that actually works for you.
Act 3: Activate your network.
Internal influence matters as much as the external brand. We covered the mentor/sponsor distinction, the five-step loop for building internal visibility, and closed with a live exercise: one ask, one offer. The room became each other's network in real time.
The closing message I left them with: You don't need more credentials. You need to start being seen for what you already are.
Thank you for the opportunity, Sofia Barberis and the Glovo team!
If this resonates, whether you're a leader looking to bring this kind of session to your team or a professional ready to build your brand with real strategic support, DM me or check the link in the comments.
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On Monday, while I was on stage, someone asked how to make sure your work connects to what the business actually cares about. My answer was simple, here's how:
I treat the business like an evolving set of priorities. They're never static.
And yet you probably wait until the annual review to ask your leader, "Is my work aligned with business priorities?"
By then, it's kind of late.
Here's what I've learned after years of working in corporate: alignment isn't a meeting. It's a habit.
Here's how that looks in practice:
1. Attend town halls (and actually listen).
Don't just go for the headline announcements. Listen for what leadership emphasizes, what they repeat, what they're worried about. The language executives use in town halls becomes the language that moves budgets.
Use it yourself.
2. Read the all-company emails (even the boring ones).
Business updates, CEO notes, earnings summaries if they're shared. These are maps. They tell you what the company is measuring and what it's proud of. If something gets a paragraph, it matters. If it gets a bullet, file it. If it gets skipped, note that too.
If it went out company-wide, it went out for a reason.
3. Transcribe important meetings and ask AI to find the patterns.
This is the tip that got the most reaction at the panel, and it's genuinely one of my favourites. Drop a transcript into AI and ask: "What are the top 3 pressing issues this business is dealing with right now?" Then ask how your function could address each one.
I've done this with earnings calls and all-hands recordings, and it consistently surfaces themes I had missed entirely.
4. Follow your company's press coverage, not just your internal comms.
How is the business being described externally? What narratives are journalists, analysts, or candidates picking up on? This tells you where the gaps are between story and reality, and that's exactly where communications and employer brand can add the most value.
5. Map your quarterly objectives to a business problem, not a deliverable.
Instead of "launch the new landing page," ask: "What business challenge does this solve and why does it matter to the organization right now?" That reframe changes how you pitch your work, how you measure it, and how visible it becomes to leaders.
6. Build one relationship outside your immediate team.
A finance partner, a product lead, someone in sales. People who are close to revenue or customers will tell you, faster than any email, what the business is really stressed about.
Ok BIG ONE: alignment isn't about attending more meetings. We're all busy. Instead, it's about staying curious about where the business is going and having the discipline to connect your work to that direction, before anyone asks you to.
What's your go-to move for staying aligned with business priorities?
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There’s 40g of protein in celebrating other people’s wins
When you take brand and EB practitioners in one room, magic, insights, and really fun jokes happen!
It was an amazing experience to take the stage at the The EB Space Unconference 2026 with Danny and Lauren to talk about identity beyond job titles: who you actually are when you strip away the role, the company, and the performative version of yourself you’ve been polishing for years.
And why having a strong, specific POV matters more than ever brands and professionals when AI can produce polished content at scale (or AI slop)
(Big takeaway: we’re all going to die so act accordingly!! 😂)
Also loved being on stage again for EB therapy session with a great Q&A and in the audience for panels on AI in EB, candidate trust, culture content, and a genuinely fun debate on reputation. Came away with more questions than answers, which is usually the sign of a good event.
To the organizers, the panelists, and all the wonderful attendees - thanks for making this special!
BIG thanks to the legend Claire de Souza for putting this all together, what an epic event!
