Bio Logic

While “who am I?” may be one of the greatest philosophical (and unanswerable) questions of our lives, we’re still often asked to write up our life stories for new business presentations in about 300 words or less. This means that despite Auntie Mame’s comment that "life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death," your biography does not have to read as if it’s a buffet, full of fat and sugar. The order of things: Generally speaking, start with your current position and work backwards. Conclude with your education. Be judicious. Include professional experiences that relate to what your potential new client might care about. Update your bio to maintain its relevance. Naming names. Follow your company’s house style and refer to yourself by your first or last name. If your company doesn’t have a house style, decide for yourself and be consistent about it. Are you the “Mary” or “Osvaldo” type or the “Smith” or “Golijov” type? School zone. When referring to your academic degree in its entirety, capitalize but do not use an apostrophe (“Danielle has a Bachelor of Arts from Vassar”). When referring to your degree casually, use lowercase and make possessive (“Aleks’s bachelor’s degree is from Northwestern”). When referring to your degree using an abbreviation, always use periods (“Nancy has a B.A. from Georgetown”). Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials. If you’ve been out of college less than two years, it’s unseemly to have a bio longer than your CEOs. You do not need to beef up your resume by including the name of every single client to which you’ve charged time in six-minute increments. You graduated last May – we get it. Boomers. Likewise, if you’re an EVP who’s been working since you graduated Miami in ’78, edit, edit, edit. Your experience as an assistant account executive while Cap Weinberger was still Defense Secretary is no longer apropos. Family ties. No one cares that you live in the suburbs with your husband Roger and your three kids Binky, Bunny, and Burt, and that you enjoy tennis and guitar lessons. This isn’t a profile on Facebook or Manhunt. Err on the side of brevity. Despite what you may have heard, most of us aren’t that interesting.

Note: I’m happy to tell you that Michelle Vranizan Rafter, author of the WordCount blog (“Technology, industry and the news business”), and a former journalist who’s written for Reuters, the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, The Industry Standard, and other publications, named Word Wise one of the top best blogs for writers. I assure you, I’ve never met her and she’s not on my personal payroll (a distinction that belongs solely to my dog walker, Myron, of Cruisin’ Canines).

Comments

[JP]

One of the biggest problems I see in the bio section of new business proposals is the variation between the way people's names are listed. Some people use a formal style (Mr. Joseph Gillis), some use a casual one (Joseph), and some use one in between (Gillis). Although I would say the use of the first name tends to be the most common style nowadays, the important thing is to decide on one style and make sure all the bios are consistent. But when a bunch of people are submitting bios in their own styles under a tight deadline, this style issue can easily fall through the cracks.