Mike English's blog

Online, our identity is a composite representation of who we are. If we google our names or screen names, we are presented with a wealth of publicly available information about ourselves.  The tracks we leave online are indelible, so the quantity of this information will only grow as we continue to interact with various web services. What do all these bits and pieces of data say about us?

Google‘s great success was in pinpointing the value of organizing information. Organization, especially providing context, adds a great deal of value to information. (The data is out there already, and if it isn’t, it will be soon. The trick is in finding it, and making sense of it.) In a similar way, we need to provide value-added information about ourselves; we need to look at what’s out there and organize it for people in a way that makes sense. In doing so, we become the recognized as the rightful authority about our identity online.

If we want to have any sense of identity online, we need to put all of the data about us in context. If we don’t provide this context and tell the world who we are, we risk being a lost statistic,  being defined by someone else, or only being partially defined by any random cross section of data coming up in a search which could skew perspectives of who we are or what we’re about. This is where having control of our data is important, because it’s essential that we become the primary source for information about ourselves. How do we do that?

This is where things get a little strange. The democratization of information on the web creates quite a bit of noise. Somehow, we have to make ourselves heard above all the noise. We need to find ways to connect with the right people. (The right people are the ones with which we stand to form meaningful relationships.) We need to set ourselves apart from the crowd and highlight what makes us unique, interesting, and worth someone’s attention. Making the most of what the Internet can offer becomes then, a sort of fame-game, where all the players are minor celebrities doing their best to manage their image while still being authentic. A variety of techniques for doing this have been suggested; Chris Brogan for example, offers a Free eBook on Personal Branding. I think Hugh Macleod sums it up best when he writes about the Global Microbrand as the “ticket off the treadmill.” But I would go further; the personal microbrand strategy doesn’t need to have a commercial payoff (book deal, speaking gigs, etc.) to be of value to bloggers. Having any degree of name recognition raises your chances of connecting with the right people. Visibility adds value.

Is it an egotistical excercise to think of identity in this way? Maybe it can be. But, at the same time, I think it’s a realistic first step if your goal is to maximize your chances of building meaningful relationships online.