Show Yourself to the World

An article by Ayelet Noff    5 Comments

Recently I had an interesting conversation with a blogging friend of mine about the gradual obliteration of borders between our personal and professional lives online. Most of us who are active web users (aka geeks) have accounts on Flickr, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. We use these networks as a way to present ourselves & our interests to the world, and to also connect with others, both for personal and professional reasons.

When I upload pics to flickr, I upload pics of myself from different networking parties, but I also upload pics of me, just hanging out, or traveling to exotic locations. When I twitter, I twitter about the last post on my blog or about an interesting article I just read on Mashable, but I also twitter about the last episode of Lost that I just watched or my plans for this weekend. When I stumble, I stumble pages that I think may be interesting for my fellow stumblers, but I also stumble pages that are just interesting to me personally. There is no separation between the professional me and the personal me. Flickr is not only a platform to let other professionals know what networking parties I’ve last been to, but it’s also a way for me to record and share pictures of my life. Twitter is not only a means of exposing people to my blog, but rather, its also a way for me to record important events in my and my contacts personal lives – almost like a public diary.

I know that some of my fellow bloggers try to keep a certain facade online. They try to control their image by only presenting their professional side to the world. They won’t tell you on their profile what their real favorite movies are or show you pictures of where they went on their last vacation. I believe they act like this partly out of fear of what other professionals may think. My friend was telling me a story about someone who didn’t get hired for a job because the company saw that he posted pictures of himself in a bathing suit on flickr. C’mon…is this sad or what? If you’re an excellent marketer who can do your job well, why should the fact that you posted a pic of yourself at the beach make any difference? If anything, it only shows that you are a human being who’s active on social networks and also, apart from working, actually has a life.

I do think that this conservative way of thinking is fading out slowly but surely, and that companies understand these days that people who are involved in all these networks provide a valuable asset to them.

Just to clarify, I am not saying that you should now go and start posting pics of yourself wasted at the last Christmas party, but I am saying, don’t be afraid to show the world who you are. Not just the you during office hours, but the whole you. If a company doesn’t want to hire you based on that, you’re probably better off without them.

Thanks to Darwin Bell for this beautiful pic.

Technorati tags: web, blogging, flickr, twitter, digg, stumbleupon, networking, mashable, lost, social networks, darwin bell