April 2008 Archives

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my digital neighborhood. The premise behind the post was that the line between my digital self and my terrestrial self had become blurred to the point of non-existence. They are all pieces of the same 'me' that I put forth. As a result of this self-revelation I became more cognizant of the multiple pieces of myself that I put forward in whatever realm (see My Multiple Selves). Jim Phelps wrote an excellent response to my digital neighborhood post asking how we as educators can leverage this concept to reach our students (see Digital Neighborhoods - Guiding Design). Jim suggests that, "we need to think about our users’ current digital neighborhoods and how we can integrate our new applications and services into those neighborhoods." I agree with Jim. Distance on the web is determined by links and the closer you are to your clientèle the better. For us that means being where our students are.

This also got me thinking about what it looks like on the other side. I manage the Technology Learning Assistant program (TLA) at University Park. This is a program designed to match up kids (both undergrad and graduate students) who want real world consulting experience with faculty who desire to integrate technology into their teaching repertoire. These kids are in a unique position of still being, well, kids while also trying to strategically prepare themselves for entering the workforce. So how do they manage their digital identity? How do they manage their multiple selves so they can be kids with their friends but young adults to prospective employers? After all, most employers "Google" people they're thinking of hiring.

To help them along I'm thinking of incorporating a digital identity management component into the TLA program. My hope is to help these kids discover a sense of purpose in at least part of their web presence.  To give them an idea of when and how to be kids and when it is a good idea to put forth a more, for lack of a better word, "serious" presence. For example, Facebook is a powerful social networking service where the vibe is casual and friendly. There all all sorts of fun and quirky apps you can drop into your profile and share with your friends. But there are also professional social applications out there, such as Linkedin, where the goal is to build a professional network of contacts. And through these contacts you can land a job,  make  deals, share advice, etc.  I'm thinking of encouraging the students establish a presence on Linkedin as part of their e-portfolio.

But there is also the need to educate these kids on managing their "kid" presence. To help them understand that space and distance on the web are entirely different animals than they are in the terrestrial world. I think most of us get this in theory but practicing it is another thing. For example, the part of the 'self' a TLA displays while working with a client is a distinctly different than the self she will display hanging out with friends. And that's how it should be. We understand how to act appropriately in each scenario and since these situations are naturally distinct, separated by both time and distance, the world runs smooth. However, the laws of time and space on the web don't operate like that.

Once an individual is 'found' on the web then practically everything about them that exists there is only a click or two away. Sure I may put a link to my Linkedin profile on my CV and strategically decide to leave my Facebook address off but, unless I lock it down, will that stop a potential employer from finding me there? Hardly. Plus who wants to lock down any social application? The inherent beauty built into them is the ability to find and be found. That's where the fun (and the power of it all) is.

So rather than teaching my TLAs the mechanics of hiding or limiting information I'm seriously thinking about having discussions around etiquette. I want to help them understand that there really is no difference between the terrestrial and the web. That they don't exist as separate planes but have now combined to create a single expanded space.  Where we generally move so freely about and between without so much as a second thought. And that's great; it's liberating. But we need to be aware of the ramifications of this freedom of movement. Gone are the  days of hiding in plain site on the web.  If somebody, such as  a prospective employer wants to find you, they will.

I'm not preaching doom-and-gloom or prescribing self-censorship. Personally, when I self-censor I grind to a halt and all creativity dies on the vine. But I do find that by exercising a little self-discipline my creativity flourishes. Instead I'm thinking more along the lines of having a sense of decorum. There are ways to express all facets of your personality and them there are ways. And I am suggesting that one may be better than the other relative to your aspirations.

I first encountered the idea of working in a paperless office environment over ten years ago while working in the health care industry. I was part of a contract that offered Medicare supplement insurance and when the contract came up for bid in 1995 a new company took over. Part of this new company's vision for reducing operating costs was the implementation of a company Intranet where all our reference and training materials would be stored. I was part of the T&D department who was charged with implementing this.  And, quite honestly, it sounded like a great and timely idea. This was the time of boom in personal computing and the growth of the world wide web. Delivering and consuming information electronically seemed logical, economical, and practical. But a funny thing happened along the way to office of the future. The human element kicked in.

People began to look at paper in much the same way their grandparents viewed land during the great depression. Currency and capital were abstract concepts who derived their solve value from the trust or belief of the marketplace but land was permanent. It couldn't disappear because someone decided they didn't believe in it anymore. Flash forward fifty-odd years and workers had the similar reaction to paper. Paper was tactile. And documents on paper were official. You could wield a document. Use it as proof. Waive it in the air to make a point. And it wouldn't disappear if someone pulled the plug on the network. There was even some research that indicated the use of paper had increased as a result of the office of the future.
 
At some point in time, I don't recall a specific moment,  I resigned myself to the fact that I would always need paper and that I would work in a dual-medium environment. Until two weeks ago.

It was the week after the symposium and I was spent. For those charged with putting it on the symposium is really a nine to ten month event and those last six weeks leading up to it are frantic with activity. For me, I was pretty useless afterwards. Incapable of sustained periods of intellectual activity I decided I would clean my office.  If you haven't seen my office it can best be described as intimate. It is literally a converted storage closet. So economy of space is essential (Good thing I'm a minimalist at heart). And that's when it hit me. I was paperless.

Going through my filing cabinets I discovered I had not 'filed' anything in over a year. My weekly reports, vacation requests, projects, etc., were all online. Stored on one machine or another. On one of two external hard drives. And more and more in someone else's database (can you say Google docs?). I was able to recycle 95% of what remained. After all, do I still need that ANGEL 6.3 User Manual? (A 500+ page behemoth). We hadn't been on 6.3 for 2 years!

So I got to thinking, as I packed the Mixed Office Paper recycling bin, how I got to this point. What happened that made saving paper so superfluous? Once the Jell-O that was my mind began to firm back up it dawned on me that it wasn't so much one thin or event that brought me to this point. Rather it was several.

As electronic document creation and storage improved I was able to do more without the need of paper. We all become more comfortable working this way and 'trusting' that bits of data were just as tangible as sheets of paper. The initial promise of the company Intranet had come to fruition in it's promise of how information could be consumed. But it was more than that. I realized my need for paper had decreased because my use of it had become more specialized. Most of what I do now I do electronically. Whether it be on my laptop or even my cellphone. I've come to rely on the text feature of my phone so much I recently bought an env for the flip top keypad. I use paper mostly for very brief notes or scribbles that will grow into something more when I take them online. Because of that, the size of the paper I use has shrunk. My binder sized day planner has been replaced by a reporter's notebook. And it's not just my need for paper to capture the written word. Now the majority of my picture taking is done wit my camera phone on digital camera and again deposited online. And it's not just visual media. Not only have I moved all my music to non-tangible electronic formats. It's also how I buy it. A quick mental check leads me to think it's been two years since I bought a cd at a brick and mortar store and that was because someone had given me a gift card. My movie collection can't be far behind. This 'virtual mentality' has crept into other facets of my life where going digital isn't all that practical. I love books but I don't buy them like I used to. I rediscovered the public library when borrowing a book is much like downloading a file and when I'm finished with it I can return (read delete it). Now I buy only the books that I absolutely covet.

Yes, a funny thing happened on my way to becoming paperless. I became 'possession-less' or 'thing-less'. At least lesser. I became digital.

I've been reading David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined and I can't stop thinking about the concept of space and how it applies to the web. Generally, when Weinberger speaks of space he's referring to the relative distance between two sites. In the terrestrial world the distance is determined by geography; the physical proximity of one thing in relation to another. For example, here in State College there are primarily two places to do your shopping, College Ave. and the Nittany Valley Mall. Each is comprised of a mixed bag of stores. On College Ave. there is a frame shop located next to a Chinese restaurant, located next to a bar, located next to a card shop, located next to a  sandwich place, located next to a jewelry store. What binds these individual stores together is not what they have in common, rather it's their the locale. They are located in desirable space.

As Weinberger points out space on the web doesn't work that way. Distance is measured in hyperlinks and proximity is created by interest. In other words, each of us gets to create own own space on the web. Your own neighborhood, if you will, filled with the places you find interesting. And unlike your physical neighborhood where you can't just make your loud neighbors disappear, that's exactly what you can do on the web. Get tired of a blog? Delete the link. If it gets interesting six months from now? Add it back. As Weinberger says, links are the geography of the web (italics mine).

So this got me to thinking, What does my digital neighborhood look like? What seemingly disparate places are loosely joined (pun intended) just because I happen to be interested in them? Let's see, if I start with my personal blog, Running on the Learn, I immediately jump to my running partner's blog, Parked Thoughts, where we do our weekly endorphin high podcast, Running with the Pack. The podcast has drawn interest from all over and we've now connected with an opera singer from New York who is training to run his first marathon (and blogging about it). And then there's Kris, the self-described "Hoosier chick now living in Australia". If you jump over to her blog you also see she's recently married and really into knitting. And Mike, an ultra-marathoner whose goal is to run a marathon in all fifty states.

Tweeting about my running experiences  introduced me to IrafromSoyasset. Now IrafromSoyasset  is a friend on Facebook and a professional contact on Linkedin. Ira introduced me to SteveRunner whose training for the Boston Marathon ad has a blog site called Phedippidations as well as a group on Facebook that  joined. Phedippidations is also linked from Parked Thoughts completing a loop there.

If we walk up the street of my neighborhood we come to another interest of mine, gentlemanly pursuits. There I have a link to a man-on-the-street fashion blog, The Sartorialist. From there I bounce to LagunaBeachTrad's site, amongst other claims LagunaBeachTrad claims to be a failed mercenary. From Trad's site I came across WASP 101 a primer on the old Brooks Brothers Boston Brahmin lifestyle. From the GQ podcast I discovered Ask Andy a Q&A type discussion forum where you can get all your fashion questions answered as well as a blog site hosted by a custom bespoke tailor from Saville Row. Not to mention the email updates I get from places such as The Gap and Neiman-Marcus.

Sometimes an old neighbor will look you up. Today I got an email from a message board dedicated to the Philadelphia Phillies that I hadn't contributed to since last September. Apparently someone was comparing the Phils start this season to their start last season and rehashed an old comment of mine. Now, my interest rekindled I moved the Philaphans message board back into my neighborhood.

If I go 'round the corner I meet my book friends redjen, nfh, and MaryMary. We post what we're reading and make recommendations and write reviews for each other from a nugget in Facebook, complete with links to retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

When I go out to my garden I find my friends Jamie and Brett. Jamie put Brett and me on to a gardening writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who'll mail you potato top tomato seeds if you send him a self-addressed envelope. If I want to discover the latest and greatest social networking applications out there I'll drop by Cole Camplese's blog or his neighbor The Blog of Brad.

There's my news aggregator, NetNewswire. It's like getting a global newspaper dropped on my doorstep. I get headlines from the BBC, Wired, the Philadelphia news stations, the blogs I follow, etc. And I get to clip and save articles fir future reference. Because of NetNewswire I actually spend less time cruising the large 'corporate' sites. Does anyone actually still go to CNN to see what's new?

Then there's all the connections I've made through Twitter and Flickr. How would I get through the day without Robin2go, stevier, or kevinoshea not dropping by for avisit? I could go on but I think you get the picture of what my digital neighborhood looks like (for the moment). Chances you'll find a lot of turnover if you come back for a visit a year from now. Maybe 25%?

And that's the beauty of it. My neighborhood exists in this form because I created it to be that way. The connection between these disparate places is that there are all one click away for me. I am the geography of my Web. As you are yours. I'd love to see what your neighborhood looks like. Please share.

Lately I've noticed a convergence between parts of myself that I used to consider as separate entities. I'm talking about my physical self, the me that exists in the tactile world who likes to run, write, and garden and the me who exists online out in the ether. The me who enjoys surfing the web consuming information like a junkie and distributing it like a dealer. Recently I've had trouble determining where which me ends and the other begins.

Take last weekend for example. Saturday morning was my last long run in preparation for the Flying Pig marathon in three weeks. I also planned to run a 5k to benefit autism research that afternoon. The challenge of doing both was appealing because they are entirely different runs (one is about endurance and the other about speed). But what became fascinating to me in retrospect was the fact that I found myself documenting it all as it was happening. I Twittered about it (first at home on my MackBook Pro and then from my phone during the events) and received Tweets of encouragement from friends throughout the day. I captured the event with photos and sent them directly to Flickr as well as other family and friends, again from my phone. Not only was I experiencing something for the first time but, I was capturing my experience in order to share it with others. 

This in itself is not a big deal. Documentary film makers have been doing this for years. Now the ability to do this has become more democratized due to advances in technology and market forces. The real kicker for me was that I was doing this in real-time and the communication loop was reciprocal. Not only could my family and friends read my Tweets and see my pictures but the could comment on them. And not just back to me but to each other without me. So my sister in Allentown could text a reply of, "Way to go" to me in State College while also telling my mother in Philadelphia who happens to be looking at a picture of my sweaty sneakers (yes, I did take a picture of that) that she's got 911 on speed dial.

I guess what's so mind blowing to me is that I did all this without a second thought. Not to long ago the idea writing text messages during a run would have seemed idiotic. Now I capture it all via multi-media. My running partner and I have started doing podcasts immediately after we run so we can capture and share our endorphin high. Meanwhile I was keeping up with a friend's progress as he fixed the eaves of his house and another friend who was teaching her son to drive.

It's been said that all politics is local. I believe the same can be said for social computing. More than Web 1.0 where we could post and read content from our computers Web 2.0 technologies enable us to read and write from numerous and portable devices using quirky applications. As a result I've gotten to know the people in my own backyard better.  Seriously, because of text messaging, Twitter, and Flickr my co-workers and I share in a greater part of each other's lives than we ever would otherwise. We've totally demolished the axiom of the separation of personal and professional lives. Conversations bleed into each other regardless of time of day or night. Boundaries are no longer set by societal norms or professional mores they  are set by us and how and when we choose to interact.

For me this convergence of my multiple selves has had a profound impact on how I see myself and how I choose to interact with the world.  Because the  lines  between  terrestrial-Jeff and online-Jeff and professional-Jeff and private citizen-Jeff  have become  smeared I think a lot more about the "me" I put forth on any plane. The web for me has become as much a public space as the library, the local pub, the grocery store, or the street where I live. And that's a good thing. For while  I behave differently in each place, each persona  springs from the same place within me.  I now think of my web persona(s) in the same way. I've actually updated my Linkedin profile so it's relevant to my professional goals. I cleaned up my Facebook profile raking up useless widgets like fall leaves. I even cleaned up my iTunes (granted that's because I ran out of disc space but I do now pick and choose what music selections I make available to our network so I'm counting it).

So, as the multiple instances that make up the single entity of me become more fluid I'm more cognizant about the side of me I choose to show. I think of the web as another physical space I occupy, like my office or my home. So I want it to look good when you come over (and you can drop by any time). Just don't look in my Personal Storage Space. That's the electronic version of the storage area in the basement. The one behind the door I close whenever I have company.