So I haven't been updating recently.  There are lots of reasons for this--work is busy, been trying to focus on diet/working out more (which takes time), cooking more, cleaning more, reading more, and of course planning!Well I have decided that I am going to relaunch my little website to be kind of my "personal portal" and an online business card so to speak.  I am going to keep the blog but I am going to try (perhaps) and make a bit more focused.  I am super excited about this prospect and can't wait to see it come to life.  (BTW, no idea on time line since I have to do this in my off hours--which tend to be sparse--but I am hoping to make some great progress with the holiday weekend etc.)With the development of my new site, I started spending some time thinking about my personal brand and what it meant online.  These days every online presence you have is no longer just personal, and everything you do/say/share is a reflection of you--and I believe I can use this to my advantage (hey, I have always found myself interesting).There is an article on mashable that has some good tips and proliferating your brand (setup a linked in profile, a twitter account, have an consistent online presence, etc).  I liked the tip of a video resume (how cool right? But of course I am partial to most things video) and of course developing your personal sense of style (this is something that I think is so important for first impressions, etc).  Part of my launch will be to rebrand my twitter page to be consistent with my website.  They also say that everyone should have personal business cards--I love paper products, so I am planning on printing my new identity on some cards too.  So, in addition to my site, I had a whole list of things I wanted to accomplish, great!Here came the hard part though--what is my brand?  This article gives some info on taking a step back and thinking through the things that make you well--you.  I thought this was a good place to start--defining what I am about.  While I will spare you from my whole exercise I started writing (and ranking) a list of attributes or things that described me (or the part of my life I am trying to represent).  Here are some of the things that made the cut:

• Technical, intelligent, nerdy, management
• Professional, sophisticated, experienced
• Stylish, fashionable, chic
• Forward thinking, innovative, entrepreneurial

My mission statement is to really establish myself as a female leader in technology, and eventually in business.  Being really experienced in technical management and engineering leadership, I want to spring board and further my reputation in these areas.  And over the last several years I have developed my working knowledge of large scale distributed web systems (and constructing/operating them on a shoestring budget), which should only become more important with the rise of cloud computing.  And while all these things are great, I also think that part of what makes me "me" is the fact that I love fashion, shopping and clothes.  I have a great sense of style and like to think that I do everything with a bit of panache specific to me.I decided to keep my title "Kate Mats"  I thought about going back to "Kate Roth" or expanding to my new full name "Kate Matsudaira", but decided that Kate Mats had a nice to ring to it (plus I already have the domain name).  From my adjectives above I did a *whole* bunch of word-smithing and came up with the tagline/slogan (wait for it!) -- "Bringing style and technology together".Anyway, I am still working on these things, but am super excited about all that is possible and coming up  :)Oh and if you have an opinion, please let me know!  I love getting feedback.