My stamp collection is increasing in size and variety. My brand is no longer static. I seem to change it the most on Twitter, my most active social network, followed by Facebook. Sometimes I change it in response to a frivolous experimental collaborative theme (like @chinposin) or a more compelling social call to action (@peavatar)

What does this mean for a company’s brand? Think about the Google homepage logo, always changing. Does your personal brand remain static? Or are you constantly transforming and evolving? Do you cling to a safe, acceptable and trusted online identity or do you look at new ways to communicate and express yourself?

If I have a relationship with you, we converse, you share your original thoughts, information and ideas (that’s your product ) then I find it completely acceptable for you to modify and update the packaging. What you say and do online etches a more permanent profile into the minds of others.

Visual representation of ourselves becomes a decoration, a declaration, an interaction. Do you have a “stamp” collection?

Online Identity Development Manager

Seeking a community shepherd to implement and manage online identity within globally evolving learning and knowledge networks:

Implement the creation of an online Identity Development Plan for each employee. A plan to develop and maintain 2D and 3D avatars, eg profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, virtual worlds and other agreed social networking tools suitable for each job function, contribution to a professional individual or group blog, tagging of colleagues etc

Oversee the uptake of self-directed daily investment by employees developing and maintaining online identity and knowledge networks

Educate employees about profile personality attributes and avatar grooming, deportment and netiquette (for the aesthetically and socially challenged :p)

Enable employees to create knowledge networks by embracing and establishing leading online identities and social networks

Assist employees to use lifelogging and microblogging tools

Provide education around the practice of knowledge and profile sharing, profile (and personal) protection and adoption of business conduct guidelines

Promote telepresence, confidence, trust and authenticity

Develop micro-learning modules and identify key knowledge stakeholders for pervasive knowledge distribution

Introduce attention management and telepresence focussed time management skills

Promote innovative collaboration and quality contributions using social media

Provide reporting and analysis of networked activity

Potential candidates must have evident virtual learning communities and a Technorati ranking of less than 100,000 etc etc (heh, you can add to my list!!)

Will the Learning Development and Knowledge Manager role/s soon transform to assist employees developing their informal modes of learning (telepresence) and focus on virtual identity?

Strikes me that those not thinking about including profile and avatar maintenance as part of routine individual development will not be well equipped in the rapidly evolving and changing communications, learning and knowledge sharing space. Traditional learning will still exist and be important of course, but perhaps the pressing demand for telepresence, on demand relevant information and dynamic interactive knowledge networks will make classrooms, elearning, and hierarchal knowledge transfer seem less critical.

I’ll leave you with a nice visual example of profile driven learning – take a look at this map discovered on Jack Vinson’s blog recently.
Marlilyn Martin’s Learning Terrain

Bill Thompson sums it up

I’m as bad as anyone here, handing over my shopping patterns to supermarket loyalty schemes; sending unencrypted emails and visiting websites without seeking to disguise my identity; using Google for my searches and wandering the streets, often walking randomly around in a way that is guaranteed to make me look shifty.

Thomas Baekdal also had a good post on privacy policy and personal information. I liked this breakdown of personal information:

Personal information specific to you as a person – like your name, address, phone number, age, your education, the name of your children, your gender, who you are married to (or if you are single), social security number, tax number etc.
Information about your actions – what websites you have visited, what you have searched for, what products you like, what you bought at Amazon, how many times you went to the bathroom last week etc.
Information that you supply to a website – like the things you post about yourself on your blog, what you post on Twitter and the comments you made on varies websites.
Technical information that links you with any of the above – like your IP address, Mac address, unique cookie identifiers and encryption keys.

I recall working with a Fraud and Debt Collection Subject Matter Expert who showed me a checklist of tips for crime prevention. This included divulging information about personal habits, times you leave the house, days you work, information about your family, your name, shopping habits etc. It made me realise that sometimes seemingly trivial information can be quite revealing.

Some people go as far as sharing their home address on Facebook. I have heard of secondlife stalkers turning up at real life homes. Sometimes I wonder where to draw the line. I want to share, communicate, express, engage, and I like freedom of speech and the forming of virtual communities. Nowadays my CV is viewable to all on LinkedIn and I have photos of my monkeys on Facebook (for my “friends”- although I am looking forward to the implementation of filtering on Facebook which I understand is coming soon.) Some Flickr their personal pics for comment, I tweet some habits on twitter but all the while I am conscious of what I am telling and (hopefully) when it becomes too much. Maybe I already tell too much? Others may think I don’t tell enough.

Sometimes I feel a bit awkward when my identity appears on “recent vistors” blog widgets and I noticed Linked In has a recent visitors function too. Facebook tracks my actions in newsfeeds. Sometimes the actions can even be distorted eg when I have accidentally followed a link, changed my mind, or the Wondermonkeys have attacked my keyboard. Mr Wonderwebby was even talking to me the other day about Google having so much of our information (data) on gmail, googletalk, google apps, google reader etc

So what is my privacy threshold? Have I become desensitized to the traditional rules of keeping things personal through my 2.0 interactions? Or am I contributing to an evolving community (and sub-communities) and moving into a new social structure establishing new dynamics of trust and protection as a result? Does it really matter? At this point in time, I’m going to share what I personally feel comfortable with – and nothing that I would not want repeated.

One…

two…

three…

jumping into the information vortex!

I certainly hope I am embedding and not so much embellishing my identity.

I hope my choice of flavour does not seem pretentious to others, as much as a reflection of my own perception to myself.

Whether willfully avatar wrangling or casually collecting a blog-full of cool

I fear not all are being sincere

Authentic voices in a mashed-up reality

I’m not completely cynical, really! The authentic voices are great and I’ve met some wonderful people through this mashed up reality! Embedding our identity in a digital form can do wonders to know ourselves and others a little better in this supersonically-paced (and often anonymous) world.

Embellishing identity (with wild untruths) on the other hand…well, I’m not sure how helpful that is. Embedding identity can still be playful and creative, without distorting the essence of “you”. I think!?

And to some, it doesn’t matter at all! Vanilla is as good as it gets.

How authentic is your digital reality?

Does the number of “friends” in your various online social networks make you think you are cool when in fact it means you are really a very lonely person who suddenly feels very cool?

What would happen if people around you created your Facebook or Myspace profile for you? Would you still have the same tags? Would they choose the same groups for you? Would they select the same portrait picture? Would your avatar still look like a chic cyber punk or more like Mr Potato Head on crack?

So then – would a lifelog tell you about yourself, would you be telling on yourself, about yourself, or would your lifelog tell others about who you think your self is?

I still need to learn more about lifelogging. In some ways it is a really simple concept about aggregating and digitising our experiences. I just wonder if our lifelogs will need to be sanitised by our true friends, to portray us more accurately.

Lifelog unplugged vs Lifelog “in my eyes.”

Or perhaps a little subconscious “bogus reality” is good for your mental health. Especially if your online reality does look more like Mr Potato head on crack.

For more reading about online identity, check out Angela Thomas’ website.