PARTHURBLOG

There are some things to do in life just because you can.

This posting is one such pointless activity. It has no content of any merit whatsoever. Indeed, you are already wondering why on earth you are spending any time on this at all.

It’s not as if there isn’t enough out there to read on the web.

So why am I writing this?

Well actually I’m not. I’m speaking it. This posting is being produced purely through speech recognition software. Including all the punctuation…

And a paragraph breaks. I can’t believe how good it is, straight out of the box.

Isn’t technology extraordinary?

All I have to do now is find something interesting to say.

(And the person who comes up with THAT application will make a fortune.)

Popularity: 24% [?]

"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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Thomas Mann: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

I wouldn’t dream of putting myself in the same company as Mann, but his comment chimes with me because of the curse of perfectionism. Every word examined, edited, re-written, re-edited – usually in real time, which usually means the first paragraph of a post takes 30 minutes to hone.

(Indeed, I have already re-written that paragraph twice. Old habits, eh?)

Some say that it’s how it should be. When Jack Kerouac published his stream-of-consciousness novel ‘On The Road’ – written in an intensive 3-week period, on a 120ft scroll of paper – Truman Capote waspishly commented “That’s not writing; that’s typing.”

For the first four months of this year, I tried ‘writing’ my blogs: and it has always taken twice as much time as I plan. Set aside an hour at 21h30 and I’m still at my desk at 23h30, searching for a bon mot as an ending.

And that perfectionism becomes a barrier to beginning. Hence, my posting have dried up since the middle of April.

But I return to the blogosphere, inspired. Thanks to Bre Pettis and Brio Stark, and their ‘Cult of Done’ Manifesto.

No more perfectionism for me; I am shutting away the internal editor who’s forever criticising every sentence, setting my on-screen timer for 20 minutes, and posting whatever comes in that time.

At least until I get back on track.

All of which is an apology. Sorry I’ve missed my deadlines, and apologies if the next few weeks (while I catch up) isn’t the same standard as before.

But hey: it might be better.

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I’m a little frustrated at the lack of readers coming to my blog. But help is at hand.

According to Iain Dale – publisher of Total Politics magazine – there are four topics that generate more response on his sites than any other; Israel, abortion, climate change and homosexuality. If I can include them all in three paragraphs of a single post, he says I’ll hit the jackpot.

(As if I’d stoop to such a low trick).

Popularity: 2% [?]

Been a busy day, and Mission Control is threatening me with physical harm if I don’t sit with her and watch the movie we’ve rented. So this will be very, very quick indeed.

So quick, in fact, that it’s over.

Popularity: 3% [?]

In the web world, what is the difference between private and public? Where is the boundary between what I want you to know and what I want to keep to myself, or maybe share with others but not you?

I was speaking to a couple of friends over the weekend. G had finally signed up to Facebook, rationalised his decision by saying it was voyeuristic, then ended the week – after three of four people had tracked him down and he was getting messages from all points – stating he felt that he had boarded a runaway train.

Last night, J happened to mention that he had noticed a group I had set up for a couple of other friends. Not really a problem other than it gave me the sense of being watched, and I woke up to the public-ness of my online profile.

PASSING STRANGERS

Isn’t that why a blogger blogs – to be watched? If not, then may as well keep a diary. The blogsphere IS public; Facebook IS public. Certainly, it’s possible to limit access (only four people can access the group I mentioned) but to start, one wants to attract as many readers as possible. I want you to read me.

Of course, as long as the readers are the RIGHT readers. Like a film star who starts to resent privacy intrusion after years of chasing fame, I’m starting to wonder where the barriers are. Having strangers get close is uncomfortable. Should I have taken a nom de web before starting out on this integrated path of social networking?

J told me that users under 30 have understood this from the off. They think nothing of adapting 10, maybe 20 online personae – and hide behind them all. Don’t ask me how they keep track: there’s probably a software app to help. But it gives them freedom to express what they really think and feel, even if it’s non-attributable.

A neat solution for those wanting to do or say things they won’t do in the physical world. And great for younger folk trying to find out who they are – like trying on different styles in a shoeshop.

THIS AND THAT, HERE AND THERE

But for G and J and I, we’ve chosen to be ‘ourselves’, which means that the social filters are already on. Even so, there are some things that we say to our friends that we wouldn’t say to a business colleagues, and vice versa. In the physical world, that separation is straightforward to keep – I see colleagues in THIS location, I meet friends in THAT location. But in the websphere, that’s much harder.

(Even the physical boundaries are blurring: in my first 10 years in business, I always wore a collar and tie to work. Always. Even if I was working at home, I’d still put on a collar and tie, just to remind myself that I was working. And when I’d finished the day I’d remove the vestments of work and ‘become’ someone else. Now that it’s dress down Friday every day of the week, that differentiation has gone too).

Technology tools have done a lot to take each of us through the private/public boundary. The first time I saw an executive at IBM take his laptop on holiday I was astonished: surely he wanted a break from work? His reply: “There are no longer vacations, just different locations”.

SET OF TOOLS

The physical mobility and the access to information certainly makes for a different relationship between work and play, and has received a lot of coverage and debate. Everything from EU directives on working hours to work/life balance. It’s not easy to find an answer, but at least we have a vocabulary and set of tools with which to think about the problem.

The exchanges over the weekend have highlighted for me that on the subject of the virtual boundaries of privacy, we have barely begun the conversation.

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