Being the forward thinking father, I registered (within just a week of his birth) his very own domain name:  CarsonLyall.com – Don’t go there, it’s a GoDaddy parked domain. It will probably remained parked until he masters HTML (we’re thinking about teaching him English first).

Why did I register a domain name (and gmail address) for my newborn? Two words: personal branding.

Tom Peters wrote in Fast Company in ‘07:

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

Thanks to his crazy dad, my son will have a head start on creating his own personal brand.

As we all know, employees used to work for one company all the way until retirement. Decades ago this began to change. My generation job hops. My son’s generation will see another radical shift: the era of the free agent.

He may not have one business that he calls his “job.” He’ll more likely freelance, consulting for many companies. I may be going way out on a limb, but I see value in preparing for this cultural change.

Whatever profession he enters into, he’ll have to compete with other “mini-brands”. He’ll need to stand apart from the crowd (again, this is after he learns to stand period).

This may be totally unnecessary. The Lyall last name isn’t extremely popular. He may go his whole life without another Carson Lyall popping up. But you never know. I now compete in search engine rankings with a female photographer in Canada. Hi Jordan!

In 20 years we may shift from domain names entirely (Even now, the shift from the .com TLD continues). But until then, we’ll continue to encourage him to keep his head up.