Read about it here http://the3six5.posterous.com/june-15-2010-jasmin-tragas

It’s my contribution to the3six5 project, created and run by Len Kendall and Daniel Honigman from Chicago.  They’re nearly halfway to creating a log of 365 posts from different people around the world explaining how their day went. There are so many unique experiences and life stories being shared, it’s really worth taking the time to have a peek!

www.the3six5.com.

“In the 21st Century I think it’s really critical that we all have a well thought-out career plan that’s based on an assessment of our personal strengths and passions, a marketing plan that includes a blog and an online portfolio for selling our personal brand, and a personal learning environment for continuous professional development. These are the things that keep us nimble and adaptable and I think that they serve both us and our employers much better”

You can read more on how Michele created her own PLE over on her blog. I’ve been wondering about the (perhaps undervalued) potential for PLEs together with ePortfolios (and even lifelogging) to integrate web2.0 with existing workplace learning and personal development planning. I’m dreaming up a way to have an ambient PLE/ePortfolio utility or system to help me achieve my goals. I’m thinking of something that aligns my personal objectives with my actual learning and collaboration activity. Ideally I’d like an integrated life based learning model – a virtual coaching application perhaps. My mind buzzes with the possibilities. And while I’m still learning- I’m definitely going to keep watching this space with interest.

Image originally uploaded by Curious Expeditions

48 hours to go. Ready to rock ‘n’ roll I take a deep breath and flick my wrist in web flinging Spidey-action, launching my holographic laptop. Or maybe cup of tea first. Flick off. Boil. Pour. Flick on…..ahhh.

Needing some tunes to inspire, I casually wave my finger through the air and the screen ripples as I open Last.fm. The song randomly served up reminds me of my husband and our cheeky little monkeys so I dip into their lifestream to see what they are up to. Laughter. Screaming. Smiles. Chaos….Sweeeeet.

47 hours and 50 something minutes to go…I begin. I’m using a combination of voice recognition, typing and a slightly manic hand waving gesture with my LifeWriter. The words find some form and characters begin to bloom, but the words come to a screeching halt as it hits 3pm and I hit a wall. I decide to do a bit of quick research by diving into a virtual world through a new tag and character portal – and find some inspiration amongst talking lilies and a kid with a seriously augmented reality, who is mashing up some brew of philosophy, hacked data and geographic locations. I dip out as soon as I find myself caught up talking to a Penguin about the recipe for corn flake cookies.

12 hours to go, fast forward through some coffee, more writing, more coffee, a nap, a short walk for fresh air listening to an episode of This American Life. Oh, and a burst of late night tweeting. I’m nearly there and enjoying the long bursts of wordiness in between online social interactions. Looking out to the countryside, I try to remember what it was like when words were captured with a typewriter or a pen.

1 hour to go. Time to sit down and read my own cooking with a fresh pair of eyes, before I power off all devices to enjoy the stillness out here. I tweet to @kellypuffs on the other side of the planet to ask her how to make the perfect G&T. “Naturally, with 12 cubes of ice!” she replies.

I rediscovered this autograph album owned by my great grandmother Ursee Bowey. In 1909 at age 22 she received it as a Christmas gift from her mother (yes my great, great Grandmother). The pages are inscribed with carefully written sentiments from friends; poems, autographs, and drawings; reflections on life, love, and hope.

Apparently these albums were “all the rage” in Australia around 1900 as they became more affordable.

I don’t know why, but finding it again made me Google my great grandmothers name. Nothing, of course (really, what was I expecting to find? Force of habit?) Now some of her album is digitised in pristine pixel glory on this blog and Flickr. And finding her album gives me a glimpse into her life, her friends and her travels. I bet the author of this poem never would have imagined the words written there would travel over oceans nearly a hundred years later.

“We may write our names in albums
We may trace them in the sand
We may chisle them in marble
With a firm and skilfull hand
But the pages soon are sullied”….(but written in eternity)

It makes me think of the transformation our social networks, our ability to lifelog and create living memories for our children and even our great grandchildren. What will they find if they search for your name? Will your memory contain reflections of life, love and hope?

A bit of background first: Douglas and I live in different countries, we work in very different roles, but have discovered more about each other over the last few months through blogging (including our intranet), Twitter, Instant Messaging and a brief meet up in Secondlife, where we have discussed issues around the application of web2.0 in the workplace.

Back to this experience. Saturday morning I walked past my laptop, when a message jumped out at me from Twitter…

wow, Douglas and his wife are about to have baby!

I felt so impatient, I wanted to know it was all going well, I felt part of his experience. Then…

I know it’s not the only Twitter birth, but I’m a little fascinated by the the future of lifelogging (aka lifestreaming) and augmentation of technology with our lives so I asked Douglas what it was like to live tweet his birth. This is his response:

“My wife and I brought a laptop to the birth of all four of our children. For the last two we each had a computer. They are convenient for watching movies in the event that things take longer than you’d expect and for updating family with pictures once it’s all done. After three under my belt I was certain there’d be time for Twitter as well as plenty of other surfing–we still had no name and I needed to research some naming ideas.

I only tweeted real time. No backdating. So there was no interruption. The twitterverse missed out on crowning, pushing, breathing, cutting the cord, APGARing, and loads of other medical denouement. Which is a shame since I think there are plenty of folks out there–men and women alike–that have a Hollywood view of what goes on in a birthing room.

Lifelogging was my primary intention. For the previous three we used paper or nothing at all. Those scraps may not be lost, but I certainly no longer know their whereabouts. I suspect to a great degree these tweets will recede in the same manner if not more quickly and irretrievably. I’ll be able to find them when and if I need.

Truthfully, I am an incongruous mixture of ‘kinda cool’ and ambivalent. I didn’t share any of the special parts; I shared the process and the steps. The twitterverse misses out on the brilliance of her eyes and the astounding mass of fluffy brown hair. Nor will it ever know how long it took before she shared the characteristic ‘grandad pout’. I’m not likely to ever break the mood of her nested on my chest asleep and snoring lightly to hack out 140 chars for everyone and no one at the same time.

Serendipitously, I just read an interesting discussion on Privacy Line with Lifestreaming by Duncan Riley at Techcrunch (hat tip to my friend and mentor Jack Mason.) Duncan writes about his concerns around privacy when lifestreaming, Robert Scoble ‘s decision to live twittter the birth of his son and questions the boundaries of personal sharing using social media.

Robert Scoble’s reply to the post included this comment:

“We had dozens of friends who were following every tweet. Real-life friends, too. You know, the kinds that don’t blog and aren’t into technology. It saved us TONS of emails and phone calls cause everyone knew what was going on and didn’t need to call us to find out how things were going.

I’d HIGHLY recommend that other people use the public Internet to keep their families and friends involved in such life events like the birth of new kids….”

So here we find ourselves, communicating in new ways, able to share special moments of our lives and revealing more of ourselves to strangers than ever before. In Gavin Heaton’s recent response to my tagging for the “8 things about me meme” he likened blogging to a social striptease,

“here the writer reveals ever more pieces of personal and professional information until the readers have built a strong and even compelling sense of the author.

Now, my long term readers will know that I started out being quite reticent about my identity and its disclosure. But over time this changed … I began to openly write under my own name, include personal photos, audio and even video casts. Yet each time, I do so I feel like I am confessing something about myself … that in displaying, writing or “performing”, some element of my true nature is revealed. This is both frightening and liberating.”

As for my colleague Douglas, well I think his step in tweeting the arrival of his fourth child was bold, generous, special and a step for him in declarative living. Although, as he mentioned, he didn’t communicate every detail, mainly the process and steps.

And to think he wasn’t too keen on Twitter only a few months ago!

Note: I do not intend for this post to cause personal scrutiny upon Douglas or Robert’s decision to share the birth of their child using Twitter. That was their own personal decision, just as some choose to have water births and others have hospital births. I hope their experiences are examples of the layers of self we choose to reveal in social media and the ability for us to further connect with each other when we share experiences and events using technology.

A photo or machinima may capture the image, perhaps I would need to lifelog it to preserve the moment with tags; other snapshots; a real life image of myself at the computer; music playing on the day; links to the real life weather report; a recording of the sound in my home; a few notes about my thoughts on the day; a virtual time capsule of conversations that occurred on my screen.

As an example, a friendly avatar I met recently in AM Radio’s wheat field asked if she could take a photo. Sweet. She sent me the pic today.

The photo brought back the mood and memories of the moment, even tho we didn’t meet face to face or set foot on actual land. If you weren’t there, the photo wouldn’t really have any connection for you. It probably just looks like a cartoonlike postcard. No memories of conversation, sounds, atmosphere, lighting, mood etc. I felt like fairy floss in an Emo landscape.

The photo might give you a glimpse into that surreal moment, but I would really need a lifelog to tell the whole story online.

More amazing snaps of AM Radio’s field on Flickr. If you buy a copy of the field, all proceeds go towards Heifer International feeding the hungry.

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.