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Working Credo
We Are Always ON.
Think about the people you follow and where/how you follow them. There is no singular source for social interaction on the web and, as we are all just a little bit different, we’re not all going to subscribe to the same utilities to connect. We end up signing up for this application so we can connect with Joe, despite the majority of our conversations happening in another application entirely. As @jeremymyers asked a while back “[Ever] find yourself friending/following/fumbling the same contacts and information on a dozen different apps?”
We Are Many-To-Many.
Sure, there are some episodes that are really good and we don’t mind seeing them again from time to time, but you can’t tell me you aren’t even a teensy bit annoyed after you’ve clicked your third tinyurl in a row that goes to a posting about Steve Jobs taking medical leave. So now, as Jeremy pointed out, we’re involved on multiple applications in order to facilitate connections with everyone who matters to us, but that leads to our having multiple connections to the same people, talking about the same things throughout the day. You read the new blog post in your feed reader in the morning, comment back and forth with the author on the site throughout the day, all the while talking about the post with others on Twitter, before maybe blogging about the whole thing yourself later in the evening. Wasn’t this all supposed to make interpersonal communications more efficient?
We Are Always ON.
We build our reputations, our brands. We connect to likeminded individuals and we share our thoughts on the world around us. But are we limiting ourselves as individuals through this brand building? Your coverage of emerging technology might be superb and your commentary on social media might be brilliant, but are those really the bulk of your pursuits? Are you not passionate about other things? Maybe just not as passionate about them? Why don’t you share these other pursuits?
What if you’re like me, interested in social media development and a shift towards business units that operate in a continual beta state, but also like to talk about getting drunk with your gear head, car guy buddies? In order for a brand to be effective, it has to be consistent and recognizable. What do the business professionals who follow me think of my comments regarding how to ohm-out a foglight switch or how Mitsubishi dropped the ball when they made their cars heavier and slower? At the same time, what do the automotive professionals who follow me think of my comments regarding SaaS, social media and branding?
We Are Who We Are.
If your online presence is to be your professional presence, where is the fun? Shouldn’t you be able to be off-the-clock sometimes? We can’t always be switched on all the time, or can we? Granted, if you are fortunate enough that your professional life and greatest passion are the same, this is all moot, but for those of us who feel like we might be getting closer to that place ourselves, it’s worth thinking about. How do the conversations I have with one group of followers on Twitter potentially interfere with the message I might be trying to share with another? We can have multiple websites where we talk about different subjects, but we have just one Twitter stream, right?
In the glovebox: