I recently ran across an interesting new service in the “personal branding” space. It’s been called “Twitter meets LinkedIn,” and it has the potential to change the way candidates promote themselves, and the way organizations recognize great work. The site is called MeritBuilder, and it is a place for people to collect all of their personal recommendations, praise, and accolades in one place. The site has a feel-good vibe — appropriate to a service focused on appreciation and recognition. The idea is to be able to create a portable platform with all of one’s praise and be able to “take it with you” even when you change positions. “It enhances the way people view your personal brand because people can see the specific things you’re being thanked for so when it comes to a big promotion or your next career opportunity, you’ll be armed with real examples of the way you’ve positively impacted people,” said MeritBuilder representative Lance Haun in a recent interview with Cheezhead. (You may recognize Lance’s name from his blogging as YourHRGuy. In fact, he has a post up about how his blogging hobby landed him the job with MeritBuilder, and that is fascinating in its own right.) It’s very easy to send “merits” back and forth. Simply send an email or a Twitter, and copy kudos@meritbuilder.com, and the company will share the merit with the appropriate individual or group. (That’s right… one of the cool features is being able to recognize entire groups.) Anyone can use MeritBuilder — it has a free account, and it’s open to the public via e-mail — but the company is hoping that enterprising HR pros will see that it is an affordable way to recognize great work and raise spirits. MeritBuilder has a tagging system, so you can tag all of your work-related merits with “work,” or even the name of your organization. The tags can also help you create targeted syndication and RSS feeds, so the messages go out to the right people. One of the coolest applications is the company’s “campaigns.” Says MeritBuilder:

Special campaigns are opportunities for regular people to say thank you to the faceless thousands who make our way of life possible. We all feel a certain level of gratitude for those who put their life on the line to defend our freedom or the people who rush in to a bad situation while the public rushes out. These people don't have a single name, email, or PR person, but they still deserve to hear from us. MeritBuilder is uniquely positioned to make that possible.

The company is currently running two appreciation campaigns: one for first responders to emergencies, and one for members of the Armed Forces. It is a clever way to harness people’s feelings about these two groups and allow them to express their appreciation. The company is open to starting new campaigns, and anyone can launch one, just by starting an account for their cause and promoting it. The pricing has two tiers: Free and Pro. On the Free plan, you get one e-mail, one Twitter ID,  one tag, five follows, three templates, and one RSS feed, plus three Achievements per month and five Merits through Email per month. The Pro plan, at $2.99 per month, offers unlimited quantities of all of the above. The main advantages of a Pro account, says MeritBuilder, are

With a pro account you have total control over the look of your public pages. You can organize and share your merits by creating as many tags as you want. And, you can display your merits anywhere you appear digitally by leveraging the RSS feeds.

One quote in the Cheezhead interview really caught my eye. It says that the company’s founder, Arkansas entrepreneur Dustin Henderson, “hopes MeritBuilder may one day join, or potentially replace, the resume as the document of choice for those in the employment market.” That sentence made me look twice! “Join” makes sense to me, and the service undeniably looks great, but “potentially replacing” the resume does seem like a very big step.  You’ve got to dream big, though, and kudos to Henderson on his ambition. Thanks and praise are too often overlooked, and they really matter. It's easy to try sending a merit... just e-mail it to the person you appreciate, and cc kudos@meritbuilder.com. Their merit will be archived for them when they go log in!