My Digital FootPrint

An important question to consider when thinking about digital footprints and what you post about yourself.  If you were interviewing someone, what would you prefer? 1. someone who lies about their past 2. someone who hides their past 3. someone who is honest about their past 4. someone who is proud of their past It could be that your history is a great way to show how you have changed and matured, grown up, learnt to manage risk.  Your history, success and mistakes are not your millstone - it is why your have your values

An important question to consider when thinking about digital footprints and what you post about yourself.  If you were interviewing someone, what would you prefer? 1. someone who lies about their past 2. someone who hides their past 3. someone who is honest about their past 4. someone who is proud of their past It could be that your history is a great way to show how you have changed and matured, grown up, learnt to manage risk.  Your history, success and mistakes are not your millstone - it is why your have your values

An important question to consider when thinking about digital footprints and what you post about yourself.  If you were interviewing someone, what would you prefer? 1. someone who lies about their past 2. someone who hides their past 3. someone who is honest about their past 4. someone who is proud of their past It could be that your history is a great way to show how you have changed and matured, grown up, learnt to manage risk.  Your history, success and mistakes are not your millstone - it is why your have your values

So you have got yourself into a digital mess. Pictures that are not fitting for the new image, blog posts that are not so in thinking with the new role, friends who are just links and you need it all cleaned up.  Alas life coaches and other ‘social engineers’ are re-branding and emerging with a promise that they will come and save you.  The guarantee is that they will clean it all up and start again….  Please don’t fall for anyone who promises to clean up your digital past.   Just a quick change of name, a new profile or a new privacy setting is not the answer, neither is deleting, re-starting, clearing cookies or buying a new computer as this is only the data that is in your control.  The content you need to think about is what others have said about you, not what you say about yourself.

    This post puts into words the fundamental shift that I have had difficulty in explaining for a while.  I believed that the prime privacy issues were erosion and  fear but now I think it is an adjustment to a new paradigm of what public means.  Public tends to mean information is available and current (news) or available but inaccessible (marriage record). The majority of us understand public in its “current public” form as it is about here and now (broadcast TV, radio, daily newspapers). This view of public was friendly as it naturally leads to a softening or erosion over time until forgiven and forgotten. With the advent of the Internet public now carries the same meanings but we have added a third dimension; always there, no control, no hiding, permanent and always accessible.    How can privacy die? Privacy is closer to gravity and electrons, in the mind of the public, than to bricks and trees, so how can it die?  Privacy is a concept, something you explain but cannot touch and

Image from   My comments on the blog post from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch I am comment 248 in a long line or rant and raves at TechCrunch, in true Arrington style he asserted that individual opinions are so wide spread that you cannot control or mange your online reputation and ultimately the public will grow immune to any indiscretions.    From what I read the post and the comments miss some critically important points: the web is a live feedback model – what is described in the original post and many of the comments hark back to the old linear print model, simple in and out. The web is feedback, hone, improve, context and build. reputation is not just about “PC, in whatever form it is” generated data, it is about unique mobile data, PC and TV data and mobile data that adds to your reputation is way more important than some small blog about that party lsat week …..     PC crew, get over it, mobile is the new black Reputation is an output from analysis – not an input Reputation

Image from   My comments on the blog post from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch I am comment 248 in a long line or rant and raves at TechCrunch, in true Arrington style he asserted that individual opinions are so wide spread that you cannot control or mange your online reputation and ultimately the public will grow immune to any indiscretions.    From what I read the post and the comments miss some critically important points: the web is a live feedback model – what is described in the original post and many of the comments hark back to the old linear print model, simple in and out. The web is feedback, hone, improve, context and build. reputation is not just about “PC, in whatever form it is” generated data, it is about unique mobile data, PC and TV data and mobile data that adds to your reputation is way more important than some small blog about that party lsat week …..     PC crew, get over it, mobile is the new black Reputation is an output from analysis – not an input Reputation

Dark Screen When writing my digital footprint I updated the Six screen’s of life work originally developed for mobile web 2.0 (extract on read/write web)    However, I have now realised that I missed one out. What is said in summary is that for the most part, we are consumers of content. In our daily lives we consume professionally created, produced and edited content from traditional and new media providers on our ‘si x screens of life’. These screens are divided into two broad categories, big screens and small screens, each with three subgroups as per figure 2. Figure 2 :  6 screens of life   Both for big and small screens, the user has traditionally been a passive receiver of content (content has been broadcast to the user) or the user has been seen as a member of a carefully controlled and managed audience (e.g. voting) – but not as a primary creator of content. For instance: both TV and cinema need users to consume (view); and a website needs users to consume/interact in most

image - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/09/ukcrime-facebook The response from Facebook to the tragic story of Ashleigh Hall today highlights a growing sense of unease about a digital world.  I am under no illusion that education and care play an important, if not critical, part in protecting those who will inherit our digital present.  In the opening to my book I said that a “digital footprint” is like marmite; some like it and some don’t.  Reading the responses to the Ashleigh Hall story, it is clear that this is a sane view. Facebook and other social network supporters are out in strength and waving the banners about benefits and this is contrasted with the stark reality from others who have been harmed and violated.  There is common ground about education and ensuring that you follow well published and sensible guide lines about your information and how to behave.   I am however worried about the view that somehow we should look to processes and technology to save us fr

image from the BBC Words are both a blessing and a curse; phrases are fashionable, colloquial and always misinterpreted.  Today at the dentist I was told I had a “communication” and that got me thinking about how we use the same word in different professions and how the same phrase communicates different things depending on location and intent.  My interest here is “Digital Footprint” and here are the most common interpretations I found today…. Digital Footprint is an term that helps educate our children about the dangers of being on-line; followed by the following advise; if in doubt don’t do it and if you do it will be found (probably the most popular use) Digital Footprint describes the data you leave in the Internet from your keyboard and mouse. Digital Footprint is the data you leave in the cloud from you all your interactions, creating and consuming, passive and active with all digital devices. Digital Footprints describe your digital identity and digital reputation. A