PARTHURBLOG

"It’s not what you are – it’s what they think you are that counts" – advice from Joseph P Kennedy to his son, JFK

A couple of days ago I posted a story about changing my name; more accurately, how I’ve added a second name after 40-something years of feeling a little empty in the middle.  The response was a mix of interest, confusion and good natured ribbing – as one should expect from good friends. But I also detected a subtext:

"Why have you announced it? I mean, it might come up in conversation at some later date. But why make such a big deal of it. More to the point, why change your Facebook address?"

In truth, changing my name is only half the story. While I did it for genuinely personal reasons, quite coincidentally it gave me a solution to a long-standing problem.

How do you draw parameters around your web presence?

TOO OPEN?

I’ve been writing Rutherblog for just over a year, and in that time I’ve written about whatever has taken my fancy: films, politics, the rail system, behaviour in shops, family life and – very recently – the death of our dog. I’ve written lists of word play, bad jokes, poems and dialogues. Sometimes serious, often thought-provoking, mostly funny (at least that’s the intention. You tell me.)

Occasionally I’ve touched on marketing, technology or recruitment – my areas of professional experience. At the very beginning of the exercise I stated that I didn’t know where this would go, and that I would fly in the face of classical marketing rules and NOT focus it or have a theme.

It has been a self-indulgence with which some of my friends have been willing to go along. It’s been very rewarding and the source of considerable merriment, for which I am very grateful. But…

There have been a couple of occasions when my openness has led to mild discomfort at work. At least one of my colleagues wonders how it impacts the way I am perceived by Clients?

Similarly, there have been a couple of occasions when I have met with candidates, and it’s clear that they’ve done their homework. So when they refer to my family life or my early days living in digs, it’s rather uncomfortable. They know too much about me.

WE ARE ALL BRANDS

This issue is put under the lens in this quarter’s issue of Intelligent Life, in an article by cultural commentator and critic Peter York. His thesis is that for the past 30 years, we have been awash not only with marketing messages, but also messages about marketing itself. We have become marketing-savvy, and many of the ideas in its kit-bag have become part of everyday conversation "positioning", "branding" and “segmentation”.

York points out that in an increasingly fragmented, fluid economy – with an ever-larger slice of the workforce taking freelance / self-employed status (I’ve done that twice) – reputation is everything. Of course, it needs to be based on something, such as a professional qualification or a track record of project success – but your ability to attract work is dependent upon the associations you make in minds of others.

So, while writing about the latest Pixar movie or my run-in with the Inland Revenue continues to give me great pleasure, it doesn’t add anything to my reputation in my field of expertise. To whit, no-one who has asked me to represent their company really wants to know that I can write spoof London Cabbie monologues.

Equally, my friends aren’t especially interested in sourcing strategies in Eastern Europe, or the challenge of distributing low-margin products in a time-sensitive markets.

Hence, I’ve created two parallel existences on the web. Paul Rutherford for business, Paul Arthur for musings on Life.

THIS YEAR’S MODEL

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop with blog sites; Web 2.0 isn’t limited to a single website address. Here’s a partial list of the sites and tools I use under the ‘Paul Rutherford’ brand: Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg, Diig, Evernote, YouTube, 12secondTV, Flickr, Tumblr… it goes on. All with a trail of digital footprints left in the sand. Once you’ve entered the blogosphere, it is a Pandora’s box.

The slightest trip can echo loudly.

Case in point: a Facebook friend who constantly impresses me with links to the most intellectually stimulating, innovative material recently became a "Fan" of one of this year’s hot new fashion models. There may well be a hidden reason to this, but clicking on her page link just took me to a set of bikini pictures. It’s not porn, but it has diminished his brand a little in my eyes. Partly because I don’t think becoming a fan of a model isn’t, well, becoming for a senior business figure; mostly because he’s told me that he’s done it.

As my wife has oft-observed about other people’s marriages, "who knows what goes on behind closed doors?" And frankly, I don’t want to know. As Kennedy Snr said, it’s not what you are, but what others think you are.

And so I’ve just become a little more conscious about managing two ‘brands’ on the web. Like a product manager, the name of the game is consistency – from the packaging to the literature to the ‘customer experience’. Hence, the need to create a web presence that reinforces the brand values at every exposure.

ALL OR NOTHING?

This sounds horribly manufactured and somewhat facile. But the truth is our ‘audiences’ (customers, clients, partners, suppliers, investors, employees, staff) are drawing conclusions about us all of the time, from face-to-face encounters, written communications, telephone calls, the way we dress, our presence in the office, our absence from the office. They have a different view of you than your partner does, or your parents, or your neighbours, or your school friends. We ‘manage’ this stuff intuitively all the time, adapting behaviours and presentation styles to suit the circumstances.

It’s the biggest challenge for anyone entering the websphere; being aware of the ‘messages’ that we’re projecting, and knowing where and how to draw the lines. Some restrict their Facebook friends to just that – a handful of genuine friends, which they ring-fence to ensure no connection to the outside world. Others open up to everyone, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get – take it or leave it.

A year into this experiment, and I’m trying to find a balance. And to do that, I’m using ‘Arthur’ to bridge the gap in my name, while widening the gap between aspects of my web presence.

So apologies to my Facebook contacts for the confusion caused. It’s because you do know who I am  that in realigning this morass of sites, addresses, URLs and identities you ended up as the one group that saw the change happen before its very eyes, with no explanation.

Not elegant – but if you can’t fall over in front of your friends, they’re not really friends.

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