My online identity

Posted on July 27, 2012 by ElliotOwl

I signed up to Twitter in 2008. The now-defunct handle I used was @nadiatweets. I used this account as a personal (not private) chat room and news feed for friends that I had left behind in Singapore (born and bred), and people that I had met while I was travelling. I started out as a fairly passive user, but started gaining momentum as time passed, realising how good Twitter at being a training tool for myself as a writer. I wrote about my life, my friends, and people on the 86 tram. @nadiatweets was personal, engaging, and potentially humorous (debatable).

In late 2009, I signed up for another Twitter account, @ElliotOwl. This account was to be, in contrast, my ‘professional identity’. Alongside this account, I also set up a blog, delicious stacks, Vimeo and so on. I was very careful with what I posted across these different networks, as I wanted to be ‘professional’. I wrote about work, and only about work, and made no effort to inject any hint of my personality at all. I used Twitter to ‘engage’ with thought leaders in the digital communications space. By which, I mean that I did a lot of retweeting. A lot. I wanted future employers to see @ElliotOwl and be impressed by the depth and breadth of knowledge that I hoped I demonstrated in my writing and my research. @ElliotOwl was dry, boring, and robotic.

Fast forward a few months: I reviewed my stats. I had 30 followers on @nadiatweets, and 200 followers on @ElliotOwl. In spite of that, I had dozens of @ replies and DMs on @nadiatweets, but hardly the same could be said for @ElliotOwl. The total number of @s, DMs and RTs that I had collected in those few months could be counted on two, sad, lonely, poorly moisturised hands.

The conclusion? As much as we try to exist and co-exist in the online space and use it increasingly as a communication tool, people still want to know people. People want to interact with people. Employers still want to hire people. Not robots.

It doesn’t matter how much you know, how much you read, and how many Seth Godinand Clay Shirky quotes you’ve retweeted. Learning is easy. Reading is easier. Anyone can do a Google search, read a blog and claim to be an expert/guru/ninja of their chosen discipline. How do you make yourself stand out?

One crucial thing that we sometimes forget, given the incredible speed of which technology grows and develops, is that we are not, in actual fact, an astoundingly complex species. We all crave human interaction, on multiple levels. Even more so, I feel, in this present day where we sometimes prefer to send a text message than speak on the phone, or choose to ‘like’ a status update than meet an old friend for a coffee. We are losing ourselves in a sea of boring, soulless, robots.

The irony is that we try so hard to make ourselves more present by hiding behind a keyboard and a computer screen.

Go back to basics. Talk to somebody. Start a conversation. Make a friend.

I have since deleted @nadiatweets, and made @ElliotOwl my main channel of communication online. I still tweet about my life, my friends, and people on the 86 tram, but I no longer make a distinction between my personal life and my professional life. I connect to many friends, people that I work with, have worked with, and will potentially work with on a far more personal level than I ever have before. I now know their likes, dislikes, whether they are a dog person or cat person, their choice cafes and restaurants, and whether they are looking to hire. I am not ‘networking’ any more. I am making friends.

The result? An uncountable number of connections made with some very clever and interesting people, and a very satisfactory number of work and collaboration opportunities.

I have not written this blog post with the intention of encouraging you to make your personal lives more public. Certainly not. Instead, take a look at the content that you’re putting out there in your name. What does it say about you? What input have you given. Are these your thoughts, and your opinions? Are you putting yourself out there as a person, or a robot?

We’ve gone through the benefits of positioning yourself as a media practitioner in the online space time and time again; opens multiple doors, allows you to connect with anyone and everyone, breaking physical/geographical boundaries etc. Now it’s time to think about how we can put that in practice, in the best way that we can.

Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment, @ me at @ElliotOwl (#im212) or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Cross posted HERE

Web of the future

Posted on June 11, 2010 by ElliotOwl

Cade Metz’s article gives us a very comprehensive idea of the Web experience of the future, and the various directions that the Web and new media in general can (and probably will) be moving into. From the “sharing and collaborating” nature of Web 2.0, future Web promises a more immersive experience, where the web does the work for us and the online space is redefined. I would pause at this point and remind myself that Web 2.0 is still developing and evolving as we speak, but that doesn’t mean that future Web hasn’t begun to rear it’s mysterious head. Metaphorically speaking, Web 2.0 is like the hip young yuppie who is trendy and stylish and goes out every weekend to socialise and party (these two may or may not be mutually exclusive). Future Web is like the three-year-old prodigal son who can already play the piano, guitar and drums and makes little colour-coordinated Lego cities complete with an extensive theme park (underwater roller coasters included) and an impressive physical infrastructure to withstand Haitian-sized earthquakes.

Metz talks about the different areas that the Web is developing. There is the Semantic Web, where machines are taught and programmed to think multi-directionally, much like human thought. Essentially, it will produce search results that are most relevant to us (weighing results against our personal preferences, calendars, buying habits etc.). Then there is the proposed 3D Web that allows us to physically be immersed in a virtual world, much like Second Life. The Media-Centric Web proposes to let us search for media with media, rather than keywords. The Pervasive Web is a full integration of the Web and real-life. An example given was how your windows at home could be programmed to respond to weather changes, opening and closing as directed by the Web.

All these Web systems encourage us to think about different modes of using the Web, and of inputting data that can in turn be translated to fit into these new systems. How quickly can this catch on? More importantly, what does this tell us about the state of social media marketing? I think it is safe to say that we can expect the Web experience to be much more personal and intimate, and I should expect that it would come to a point where a brand can literally talk directly to their consumers, as one would with a best gal pal. These new Web systems are already under development and there’s no telling what new technology we are going to be privy to next month, next week, or even tomorrow. New media marketers must therefore allow themselves to imagine the impossible and think laterally. Understand that information is no longer being consumed in a linear top-down fashion, but instead, is a fluid, organic system of give-and-take between media consumers and producers.

The Real World: virtual communities vs real communities

Posted on June 7, 2010 by ElliotOwl

Here’s a project I’ve been working on in recent months:

The Real World is an exploratory documentary project about the validity of virtual communities as “real communities”. This project focuses on flash-mob communities in Melbourne, Australia that are based online. It features two communities that have been very active in recent years planning and executing annual activities that are attended by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of participants.

While these communities are based online (in both cases, on Facebook), they have also managed to project physical presence in real life. The question is: does this make them a “real community” in the traditional sense?

Zombie Shuffle

The Melbourne Zombie Shuffle is an annual organised event that sees hundreds and thousands of the undead shuffling/crawling/lurching through Melbourne city streets. What began as a (relatively) small gathering of zombies in 2006, has exploded into an unstoppable force in recent years. 2010 brought about highest number of zombie participants, with a reported 4,000 – 6,000 zombies wreaking havoc throughout the city. The community exists on Facebook and all interaction leading up to each event, as well as photo and video dissemination occurs almost exclusively online. See: Melbourne Zombie Shuffle 2010

Pillow Fight

The Melbourne Pillow Fight is an extension of the annual International Pillow Fight Day, held in cities around the world like New York City, Toronto, Barcelona, Seoul, Paris and of course, Melbourne. 2010 marked the third anniversary of Melbourne Pillow Fight and saw about 400 deadly serious pillow fighters participating, fully armed with their feather pillows and flannel . This community also exists online and all communication is made via Facebook and word-of-mouth. See: Melbourne Pillow Fight 2010

Find out more on The Real World.