Fractured Identity

Well, here I am posting to this new TypePad blog, which has some very nice features.  However, I have spent a lot of time cultivating my web identity on the collection of blogs that I have gathered here:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/TheLongRoad/

So, I am loath to think about moving even if this site does add a nice social dimension to things and it makes posting quite simple.  My issue, however, is that I don't want my web identity to become too fractured and I am working to cultivate a community around my work on the Long Road...

Comments

[Christopher P. Long]

I want to add something here because I am now wondering about my Twitter identity. Do I just keep tweeting as http://twitter.com/cplong or do I start a new account as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies? It seems that this is what Christian Brady does as Dean of the Schreyer's Honors College. He is both:

http://twitter.com/Targuman and http://twitter.com/shcdean

On the side of two twitter accounts is that I will want to tweet things in a more professional voice as Associate Dean than I will as cplong, particularly if I am playing #foursquare with people or some such silliness.

On the side of the one twitter account model: I am one person with multiple dimensions and presumably each dimension adds something important about who I am. I would like to break down the barrier between Dean Long, Professor Long, Dad, Chris, etc....

[PinkPeonies]

I understand the impulse to separate the two, but I think in reality it gives you much more dimension and humanity if you enact multiple identities simultaneously on Twitter. Would you not talk about your family with your students? Share a joke? Give an opinion? If you would do these things in real life, it's perfectly acceptable on Twitter.

That said, I have two accounts, because one of them is an institutional account: @PalmerMuseum. My Palmer tweets are exclusively about the museum—they represent the museum and not me. So if you are going to disseminate info, announce events/deadlines, etc., then you might consider a separate account.

I'll follow you either way. : )

[Stevier]

I struggle with this one, too. Professional vs. personal? Open vs. Closed? Public vs. Private? I'm "stevier" pretty much everywhere (Flickr, Twitter, foursquare, etc), but there are times that I don't want what's on my Twitter stream to show in Facebook, or even elsewhere. At the moment, I'm cautiously moving forward with just the one identity for both friends and co-workers. Eventually, I do believe that we'll all be "out there" to the point that it won't really matter anymore, anyway, but I'm not sure I'll be able to hold to this ideal forever, either.

The only compromise I won't make is to keep my children's names (and some of their images) from being totally open. Mainly because that's their decision to make, not mine. Still, as they grow, I imagine that they too will be posting a lot out there. It'll just be my job to help them to craft it in ways that are helpful to them and make most sense.

[twitter.com/shcdean]

I have two because I do try and keep my @shcdean more "professional," just as I keep my SHC blog http://engage.shc.psu.edu/ focused upon institutional matters. I think the key to remaining whole (and not fractured) is that I do not hide my other online "identities." There are LOTS of students who follow @targuman and my other blog http://targuman.org/blog/ and will occasionally comment there or ask about something I have posted there.

On the other hand, I do not think that it would be terribly appropriate for me to ask for music suggestions at @shcdean. There are lots of folks who follow that twitter account (including news organizations and other administrators) who are looking to that feed for more "official" sorts of information.

Or, to put it another way, I wear a coat and tie to work, but at home I put on jeans. I am still the same person, but the change of context allows a change of attire.

[Christopher P. Long]

I really appreciate these perspectives.

I do agree that there will be things that I want to promote as Associate Dean for UG Studies related to what we do at the CLA. So perhaps that is something like PinkPeonies's @PalmerMuseum and Targuman's @schdean accounts (both of which I am now following, thank you very much).

In the spirit of the clothing metaphor used by Dean Brady, aka @Targuman, aka @schdean... perhaps I need to think more in terms of multiple voices that articulate an organic identity...

[Christopher P. Long]

One other thought, perhaps the CLAUS Dean twitter account could be a multiply authored account to which me and my staff can post...

[Brad]

I feel this is a tough question. Looking at Dean Brady's two accounts, I don't really see a big difference at first glance. I can see the appeal of a slightly less nonsense account to keep students informed. Perhaps your "Dean" account would be fed by a blog or some other source. This blog could feed to both your twitter accounts. One of your accounts is still reflecting the "Whole Chris", but the other is simply disseminating the voice of the Dean.

Here I am talking about actual solutions, and perhaps missing the deeper question.

One thing I think is important in all of this is to remember to speak with the same voice in your Dean spaces as you do in your other online spaces. For the Dean twitter account to reach its full value, you should use it to express your genuine humanness and use it to participate in conversations. I am sure this won't be a problem for you, but it does perhaps make it harder to define the difference between the two accounts.

[twitter.com/shcdean]

Brad's comment about being univocal is important. Long ago I decided that I would not blog anonymously, even if I had an institutional and a personal blog. (I have very strong negative feelings, for example, about "Dean Dad" http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/. That is NOT a good example in my opinion.) But if you read both of my blogs or twitter feeds you hear the same person. I just tend to focus differently in each context. BTW, my Targuman blog feeds @targuman as my SHC blog feeds @shcdean and my facebook account, which I also see as more of a professional presence than personal, although lots of old HS friends and family are there as well.

[robin2go]

As you can tell from those who've commented before me, this is a question we all struggle with. My outlook has changed over the years, and I now have a relatively ubiquitous online presence as Robin2go. But what I have done is actually build the *brand* of Robin2go; if I create other personas, I dilute that brand. I believe Dean Brady's done an excellent job with his two personas: while he often retweets Targuman in his capacity as Dean, he doesn't hide either persona, but rather simply changes focus. I am clear as to the type of information I will get from each account. This is different from someone handling an institutional account, because you often don't know who's the voice behind the official tweets (Palmer Museum of Art, IST, PSU World Campus, etc.).

My take on fractured identity is a bit different. I look at it in terms of the multiple types of technology I use in my online presence. I now have a typepad blog, but I'm trying to define what form it will take (Wonder Twin powers, ACTIVATE!). My PSU blog, Renegade Element, is where most of my professional blogging goes, since it is an extension of my portfolio. My entries in the Stuff blog are about technology that's up and coming. My posterous blog is commentary on things I stumble over (and take pictures of) while I'm out and about with my phone. My tumblr blog is commentary on things I stumble over while on the webs. My twitter account is all these various facets of "me" all rolled into one. I also have a personal blog that has gone mostly dormant because my other blogs cover the things I'm likely to cover.

Where, then, does that leave a new blog? Is there room for it? Is it unnecessarily fracturing my online presence? Perhaps I'm only working with it as a test run. I haven't really come up with a solution, but if I can't answer this question, then technology for the sake of technology is pointless. It's why so many blogs--and technologies--are started, then abandoned, in favor for something else that actually does the job at hand.

As always, your mileage may vary.

[twitter.com/shcdean]

The institutional account issue and identities (truly identities and not personalities) comes up with respect to someone like @presidentgee I have been told by many folks that President Gee does not even use email (they are printed out for him and he hand writes his responses). The assumption then is that he is not doing his own tweeting. But they read very personably (if not very personal). What do we make of that? They are written in the first person and comment on places where he is, people he is seeing, and his feelings ("Honored to be present at Columbus breakfast remembering Rosa Parks, remarkable American."). Are those his words or a communication officers?

I should quickly add that I do NOT know that he is NOT writing his own tweets. I only know that many think it unlikely. I am not calling him a liar or that he is allowing some for of misrepresentation.

But it does serve to illustrate a delicate balancing act that public figures have to make. Consider @barackobama. It is the "official" Obama twitter account but they avoid writing in the first person since we all know it would be a fiction. Thus they are able to represent the President without saying they are the President.

FWIW, @shcdean is all me. ;-)

[Christopher P. Long]

I just want to point out that this conversation is now fractured in interesting ways. It continues on Chris Brady's Targuman blog:
http://targuman.org/blog/2009/12/02/fractured-online-identity/

And it has spilled over onto the Long Road:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/TheLongRoad/2009/12/on-hearing-oneself-through-oth.html

Only to return here in this comment and in a new post on this blog, above:
http://cplong.typepad.com/blog/2009/12/fractured-online-identity-targuman.html

[SCMProfessor]

Interesting. Chris (Brady, @Targuman) and I have talked about this before, and there are many echoes here of past conversations.

I too like the idea of work clothes, and honestly, one could extend it to include different work clothes for different tasks. Or, from my background, different uniforms. There was the BDU (cammies) for more utility or warfighting activities, the “blues” for office work, and of course, the service dress for formal functions. But I continue perhaps too far down this path…

I have three blogs/web presences. I have a “professional” service one where I am focused on Supply Chain and Logistics issues. That is the main address, and the one I even use for my (non-Penn State) email. You can see that at http://sctoday.net . I then have a more “catch all” blog (the first one I ever had, actually) where I put my more broad thinking posts. Politics. Tech. Recipes for Crepes. It’s all there at http://theprofessornotes.com and then finally, I have the one I do with my son, where we focus more on the things in our lives together (and mostly focused on him. That’s aptly named “http://fathersonchats.com” because we were originally not only blogging but podcasting as well.

My approach was not so much to have separate “identities” but rather to have venues that were appropriate for the topics at hand. In part I was thinking about the audience. The readers/listeners at the more professional site would have little interest in my personal life. And we found that people listening/reading at the Father and Sons Chat were interested in those activities, and not some of my other ramblings. That said, my Professor Notes does serve the role as “catch all” and in that blog I am less concerned with my audience than I am with just sharing “thoughts.”

Like @stevier (Stevie) I have one name pretty much everywhere. I am SCMProfessor. On Twitter. Gmail. Flickr. It works for me. And like my brother, I am not too concerned if people follow me from one venue to another. I have had "first life" friends that crossed venues as well. But given this, I realized I needed to maintain the same personal 'discipline' that I exercised in most other venues. Behave with a certain level of decorum in all public venues.

That said, to stick with the metaphor from my brother, I have felt that, regardless of my “online attire” it was never appropriate to be “in my PJs.” For me, that meant I protected the identity of my kids (perhaps overly so) until they were old enough to be part of that decision–and I erred on the side of over protective. For a long time, we would mention our first names, but when we were just running our two blogs I kept our last name unmentioned. (Not ‘hidden’ just not shared.) I have generally moderated my posts at all sites. I have at times written posts where the ideas might offend or challenge, but I have worked hard to not write anything that would cause one to ignore the message because of the words.
Sometimes I have failed, but maintaining public decorum has always been a concern.

Anyway, my thoughts.