increasing complexity of identity management.

I think it’s been established that people are now brands, especially if they decide to participate actively in social media. It’s not a binary ‘brand / not brand’ thing, it’s an issue of success and ubiquity, mom and pop vs. walmart. This, however, has complicated identity management beyond what any previous generation has to deal with.

I have two jobs, and as such am a representative of those brands. My publicly accessible actions, photos, profiles, etc., have been (to an extent) constructed to exclude content that would be harmful to the brand I represent. Basically, I’m censoring myself in several instances, because I have to make sure that my actions, even in online manifestations of my personal life, maintain the decorum that my work life demands. Lots of people I know deal with this issue by locking away their online profiles, forcibly (and incompletely) segregating their identity.

I’ve decided not to go that far, because my social / online identity is at time useful currency in work related situations, and I’d throw away the chance to get to know more about people who are initially work contacts.

I also write this blog, and therefore have to carefully watch what I do and say, as that is the sum total of control I have over the perception of the broken gentleman as a concept. I put the ideas out there, and people decide what they mean. You’ll notice I more or less keep my personal life off this blog, and I intend to continue to do so.

I’m the only person responsible for the Jon Crowley social brand online, and it has, more or less, been subjugated to the benefit of the work life / blogging brand values.

The reason I, and I assume many of you, use social media is the benefit in creating a trackable past, both for yourself and those you encounter, as well as connecting to others without having to worry about time or location.

As a transition generation, I think the ‘why’ of using social media is going to suffer in service to offline life, professional life, etc. This will probably continue until we decide that seeing evidence of something happening isn’t all that different from knowing it’s happening but ignoring it for propriety. Until values shift, social media is going to suffer as we try to put the genie of transparency back into the lamp.