While I was away on holiday this year I started to think more philosophically about the rise of social media. That was prompted by me spending sometime last year looking for my new gig. As you might expect I didn’t use job site or agencies. The process of finding a new role didn’t feel as half as formal as it did back in the 90’s when I was last a “permie” (permanent employee). I found my new role of the back of social media – combination of personal network developed over the last decade as virtualization took off, and my personal star took off at the same time.
Social Media and Career Opportunities
I found out about opportunities though that network, and also through twitter as well. The other thing I’ve noticed in recent years is how many employers expect us IT folks to have a blog. For some reason its come to be sign of how committed you are to your work. It’s perhaps more acute in roles which are public facing (like mine is for example), but even the average jobbing IT guy is meant to be blogging as well. So on top of keeping your IT skills sharpened, you supposed to be sharing what you learn with your peers. I guess that’s indication of how important these social networks have become. In the increasing complex worlds, having a list of 200 people who are experts in your field – who happily respond to your informal requests for help – is valuable resource to you – but also for the companies you work for.
That got me thinking initially, how social networking represents or illustrates one of the truisms or cliches that have been knocking around ever since I started working. That’s not what you know that counts, but who know. For while I began to wonder if social media represents an extension of the “Old Boys Club” of the past. In the past it mattered what school you went to, what university you went to – and what gentleman’s club or golf club you were a member of. I thought for a while that what social media has done, has basically taken the old games of the past and put them online instead…
But stepping back I began to think differently. The New Boys Club is nothing like the Old Boys Club. Here’s why. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are. So long as you have internet connection and the time – you can join this community when you like. It also appears to have broken down the normal barriers and hierarchies that used to limit the scope of communication. Nowadays the CEO, CTO, CIO and VPs are on twitter too, and they are remarkably receptive and open to any joe-smo like you or me – approaching them with ideas and opinions. A good example this year was me posting my ideas on the “VMTN Subscription” to Steve Herrod’s blog, which kinda of sparked a movement of sorts…
I think things like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on – are often dismissed by folks my age and older, as time wasting distractions from the business of “real work”. To some extent I would agree with that – if you allow them to become the main thing you do – rather than being communication tools to bring peoples eyeballs to valuable content or information. But I think perhaps its time for the cynics to look again and think again. You could be missing out some really good information and help from your peers. For example last year I think I must have done about 10-20 free Skype calls with folks who wanted to ask me questions from Twitter. I found that hugely enjoyable. It’s break from writing and given I was stuck in my home office for hours at time – Twitter and Skype have become many main connection to the outside world… That might sound a little sad, but if I’m honest with with myself – it is true.
Questioning the Divide: The Public and The Private Self
The other thing I’ve been thinking more and more about is the walls we create between our public selves and our private selves. It’s common practise nowadays to put a firewall around our private life, and public self. Privacy is increasingly a concern, as the ability for individuals to raise their personal profile via Social Media makes us able to have a global pressance in way that was unthinkable in the past. Increasingly I want security, but also I wonder about the value of privacy. Privacy isn’t secrecy, and secrecy isn’t privacy – although the two are often conflated. For me privacy comes from what you are prepared to share online and what you are not. You become your own internal “censor” deciding what’s appropriate or not appropriate to put on a social network. Whilst I’d be more than happy to put up photos of me on Facebook of my Mum & Dad and I having a trip out for the day on the steam train – I’m not sure I would use a social network to announce a death in the family or relationship breakdown. I guess I’m showing my British roots – in our culture your not supposed to “wash your dirty linen in public”. That’s something a younger generation might learn by NOT appearing on our equivilant of the Jerry Springer Show. Believe it or not we do have such shows in the UK, and there appears to be no shortage of people willing to appear.
Anyway, I digress. For me Google+, Twitter and the blog is very much my public self – I’m there mainly to talk about work related matters – but occasionally the odd personal remark or joke will filter through or the odd music video. Facebook on the other hand I’ve tried to keep to be about personal/social side of me which isn’t about work. That’s something I feel resolute about. I have lots of friend on Facebook who aren’t remotely interested in the new PowerCLI commands, or the next version of SRM. However, that hasn’t stopped folks from my work life want to be friends on Facebook. For the most part I accept them (unless I’ve never met them in the real world, and don’t have clue who they are!). For a while I had two Facebook accounts one for me the private me, and one for the public me – I thought I would use one to advertise my work related content. Sadly, that just created confusion – when people searched they found two “Mike Laverick” on Facebook – and it was more or less random which one would get invites. It seems like the future is having just one FB account and then using groups to seperate the folks out. That way I can post content to the group who would find it more relavant.
But here’s a more radical idea. How about abandoning the concept of the private/public self altogether. After all what’s so horrible about the people you work with or met through work that you wouldn’t want to be friends with them. What so bad about the private me, that work related people would “unfriend” me. Of course there will be some that would worry that future employers or current employers would monitor their FB activity looking for dirt. My view on that has always been that if I worked for company that did that, I wouldn’t work for a company that did that. Of course, that kind of goes back to my earlier comment. Rather than seeking to censor or control what people put on social networks – people should engage the brain first. Hopefully, you do this already. Do you remember when you started to type something in an email or an edit box and then hit the backspace key. Thinking, what’s the impact of what I’m about type? Is it worth it? The people who get themselves in a pickle are the ones who return first, and engage the brain afterwards…
What do you think? Do you try and seperate your public and private self – and how successful are you at doing that?