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Reputation Management for Digital Natives :: Conclusions
November 4, 2007 | |
The thing about Podcamp is…you come back home with a pocket full of business cards, a camera full of great flickr shots, a head full of knowledge and all of this enthusiasm for blogging and twittering and podcasting…and all you wanna do is sit down and blog it…and all you have time to do is all of the [paying] work that piled up while you were partying with your geeks at Podcamp. Thus, an entire week late, here I sit writing about my session from Podcamp (a roll call post about all of the peeps I met there to come later). And so, without further grumbling, I give you…
Reputation Management for Digital Natives :: Conclusions and Frustrations (warning: this is going to be wordy)
The plan: We kicked everything off with blog posts specifically asking young people and educators (we knew these groups would have a lot to say on the subject) and anyone else who happened upon the posts to give us 3 DOs and DON’Ts of online reputation management. We got some excellent material! Couldn’t have done without all of you. Using a technique loosely based on Grounded Theory (Young’s idea, no doubt) we used the data (your suggestions) to come up a theory of broader categories, almost a checklist of sorts, that digital natives can consider each time they publish something online.
The problem: How to define ‘digital native.’ We started off our planning thinking that the session was going to be mostly about young social media butterflies and what they should or shouldn’t do online. After all, the Wikipedia definition of a ‘digital native’ is a person born after 1980. The three of us fit that definition, but we were having a hard time reconciling it with the fact that some of our most valuable social media lessons learned, had come from people born a few years before the cut-off date. Luckily, Digital Natives, a research group from Harvard, was thinking the same thing and started following us on twitter (Don’t you just love this stuff!?). The definition we found on their wiki much better fit what we had been thinking all along, so we shifted our focus to digital natives of all ages and further discussed this topic with our stellar crowd.
The rules (if you can call them that): So we used all of the great wisdom and tactical suggestions collected through crowdsourcing and managed to boil it all down to 6 categories that (we think) encompass everything. Here they are, with some of our favorite quotes included:
- R-E-S-P-E-C-T — Yep. That’s the first one. You had to know it would be in there after all of the discussion about respect online preceding Podcamp. But it’s not just about young people, and it’s not just about writing inflammatory posts. This category encompasses…well, basically everything your mamma told you about respect — Be honest, transparent, ethical; don’t think you know it all; be open to new things, new points of view; disagree in a civil, constructive way.
- Personality — Now this is my favorite category, as it provides the biggest opportunity for success or failure. (This was also a fun one to talk about with our audience.) Be original — don’t copy someone else; get your own authentic personal brand; represent your complex self online (this includes personal and professional); to quote Lee Hopkins (he pretty well sums it up): “Show your thought leadership, your intelligence, your humanity, your humor, your insights, your wisdom, your passion, your enthusiasm, your personality, your creativity, your energy, your self…”
ConversationsFriendships — “Conversation” really has become a buzz word lately (it’s even the slogan on the back of our Converseon business cards) and for good reason. Conversation and discussion have made the blogosphere the vibrant space that is. Conversation is great, don’t get me wrong. But it can’t replace friendship. The key point to take away from this category: don’t let Facebook photo horror stories and talk of Google tattoos scare you away from participating in this welcoming, friendly space. The benefits far far outweigh the costs. I’ve interacted with some of the smartest people all over the world, and am doing my best to form friendships — not just networking opportunities or business connections — with as many of them as possible. Yes, do all of these other things, but (perhaps most importantly) don’t forget to be a friend and make friends.- Learning — This one is pretty obvious. No matter who you are, you don’t know everything; go into the space with an open mind and an eagerness to learn from your peers; take advantage of the collaborative nature of the blogosphere; be active, not ani-social — seek out knowledge by reading and commenting; make valuable contributions to the community; make mistakes and LEARN from them.
- Awareness — This one is about audience, the first thing any good communicator should consider, whether online or off. Keep your most unintended audience in mind (for me, this means not posting something my parents couldn’t forgive me for); pause to think, listen and understand, sometimes your first reaction to something isn’t the best one; edit yourself — while allowing people to see your complex personality is a great thing, you can share too much; consider how others will perceive you based on what’s online — is that you?; keep an eye on what others are saying about you; Google yourself, for goodness sake!
- Consciousness — Although technically a synonym for ‘awareness,’ we thought it deserved its own category, as it encompasses slightly different principles. While awareness focuses more on audience, consciousness focuses more on self. Think about how you are presenting yourself online; don’t turn off your “brain-to-finger/mouth filter;” don’t be rash; realize that what you publish could be a part of your reputation forever.
The frustration: We had a tough time slot (after lunch on Sunday afternoon) and a small crowd. But boy was it a smart one! We were lucky enough to have some of the best discussion and crowd participation I saw at Podcamp. And I, for one, learned a ton (which was really my goal for the whole thing). Ultimately, after all of the good discussion, what did we come up with? That it’s really frustrating to be a digital native sometimes. Sure social media present this excellent opportunity to show your personality and create a personal brand for yourself, but what ever happened to the time when we didn’t care about our brands, a time when the internet was this special, unrealistic space where we could all express ourselves however we chose. Since we are so ahead of the curve, what does the rest of the world (in suits) think when we show our complex, unprofessional selves online? With reputation management fresh on thier minds, Bryper and Anna Farmery discussed this and other issues relating to employment right after our session for the latest Forward Podcast; worth a listen (although you may question Paull Young’s personal branding strategy when you hear the outro).
The things is: there really are no hard, fast “rules.” Because we are all so different. I don’t know what Paull’s take on this will be, as I’m writing this before him, but I think one of the biggest take aways from our session was that it’s important to approach reputation management, whether you are the digital native or the one wanting to hire him/her, with an open mind. There’s no special algorithm or formula for how to do this stuff. Some of us are heavier on the personality and friendship and lighter on the awareness. Some of us are way too uptight about our reputations for our own good (that’s what Paull says about me, fyi). The best way to approach it, I guess, is to find your own, AUTHENTIC balance among all of these.
In any case, we had a blast presenting and discussing. I hope that all of you digital natives out there find our conclusions insightful and helpful. I’m sure you’ll let us know either way 
[Since I’m still getting around to commenting on all of your blogs, I want to give a special shout out to everyone who contributed to the crowdsourcing initiative: Richard Bailey, Robert French, Karen Russel, Heather Yaxely, Jeremy Pepper, Bill Sledzik, Joe Cascio, Ryan Shell, David Parmet, David Phillips, Stephen Davies, Micheal Allison, Melanie Seasons, and all of the people who commented on Paull’s post (too many to link). Also, if you were in our Podcamp session and I’ve forgotten to link you, please drop me comment and I’ll add immediately.]
Comments
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great wrap up Christi. It appears you *are* a blogger, after all
Great post. I think it’s really cool that a bunch of people can pool their individual experiences and develop a guide for something that looks more like an art rather than a science.
You guys are great for taking the lead on this. I shall to follow…
Hey Christi,
Great post and thank you for the link. Hopefully we’ll get to chat about loads of geek stuff next week!
Cheers
[…] done a great wrap up already, so without further ado here are our 6 wide guidelines for online reputation management - […]
Christi,
I found you through Mitch’s podcast today, well after attending PodCamp.
PodCamp was quite an experience for me and continues to expand my horizons as I poke around and learn more. Thanks for helping me along with your post.
Cheers.