Three years ago, if someone had said the word ‘hashtag’ to me, I’d have thought they were playing some kind of drug induced version of my favourite childhood game. Hashtags certainly didn’t exist at the time of the last general election here in the UK – a time where politicians fervently communicate their policy in any way they can – be it kissing babies, buying a new duck house, or knocking on doors.

And so we find ourselves in 2010 – the year of Obama’s healthcare bill, and once again the general election is gaining on us fast. Only, this time, politicians are coming to the campaign trail to find it looking subtly different to how it’s been in the past. The reason?

The explosion of Social Networks

A great man once wrote “all the world’s a stage” – a sentiment that really holds true to social tools like Twitter. The ability to have a very public conversation that crosses race, class, gender and country borders as proven itself to be incredibly powerful – as protests in Iran, earthquakes in China, and even plane crashes in the US have proved over the past couple of years.

Twitter’s way of tagging events and locations is simple – which makes it really quite genius. A hashtag – for those not in the know – is a word or short phrase (with the spaces removed) associated with a specific thing, with a hash put before it. For example, #g8summit and #rdgtweetup refer to the G8 Summit, and the Reading Tweetup events. If you want to tag a location, then #rdg is the tag for Reading, UK; #ldn for London; and so on.

Combine the global reach of Twitter, the very public nature of the conversation, and the ability to use hashtags to refer to a specific event or place. Add in a dash of upcoming general election. Stir. What do you end up with?

Soapbox, or melting pot?

The freedom of speech that Twitter affords people is fantastic – never before have I been able to catch up with what people all over the world are doing while I’m in bed, on the train, or on safari in Africa. It’s no surprise then that Twitter has been jumped on by advertisers, fanatics and anyone with an agenda they’re passionate about. It gives those people who have something they feel that they need to tell the world a place where they can actually do that.

The ability to choose not to follow someone if you find them offensive, disagree with what they’re saying, or just plain don’t find them interesting is really powerful – and has been key to Twitter’s success. Without this ability, I’d have an unmanageable list of people talking about all kinds of things, all of the time. Of course, where that model falls down is hashtags.

Like many people, I use TweetDeck to keep track of hashtags, as well as replies and message – and one of the tags I follow is the #rdg tag. I’m a ‘community spirit’ kinda guy, and I like to know what’s going on locally and contribute. Sadly, I’ve noticed the #rdg hashtag being abused more and more by off-topic conversation, advertising robots, and – sadly – politicians trying to discredit each other.

Last night, after a not insignificant amount of said twitter smear campaigning (smittering, perhaps?) I sent one of the offending politicians an @ reply asking him to respect the tag. The reply I got (on the right) was, while not from the politician himself, nothing but fair – and indeed was the reason that I spawned this blog post. I was wrong to single out one offender – and simply tweeting criticism at people isn’t going to help make things better at all.

Make Yourself at Home

And so it’s my hope that, during the political storm that’s sure to be heading our way in the lead up to this year’s general election, our local (and national) politicians can respect the etiquette (nay, twetiquette) of this global community of people that they’re tapping into during their campaigning.

Would you go around the town knocking on everybody’s door three or four times a day, telling them the same thing over and over, or telling them why they shouldn’t listen to that other person?

There are some politicians that make use of social networking tools really well. Tom Watson, an MP for Labour, is just one example of how conversation is power, and that you don’t need to ‘spam a hashtag’ to get your voice heard or your point across.

We’re not saying you’re not welcome here. All we ask is that you respect the convention, respect each other, and listen.

After all, Twitter is the people who use it.

Having been involved in user groups for a while, I know – as a user – how rewarding they can be. Far from just being a place to socialise with people, it’s a great place to learn more about the technology I use on a day-to-day basis, and learn other people’s best practices to make me better at what I do.

What I hadn’t experienced before was quite how powerful a user group can be from the point of view of the creators of that technology… until this week.

One of the hats I wear is as a consultant to Microsoft working on deployments of their Live@edu email & collaboration platform, and on Tuesday I had the chance to stick my head in on a user-led special interest group that some of our customers have set up.

It was a big surprise to me how different it felt being on the other side of the table at a user group meeting – I was there as the product, and so the discussion took on a whole new, much more personal meaning to me. Customers that I’d talked to individually – often at their own site – were mingling, sharing best practices, and coming together to learn how to use our technology better.

It’s all down to you…

And so I really wanted to share that thought, and say that, once again, I can’t recommend getting involved in the tech community highly enough. Whether it’s going to an event like DDD, NxtGenUG or Edge; or something much more product specific – it’s a hugely rewarding experience that really makes the technology world go round, encouraging excellence, innovation and passion.

I’ve always seen sexuality as just another part of me, like a limb or an eye… and so when it came to things like pride marches, or the LGBT society at university, I never bothered. It’s not like I go up to people in the street and wave my arm at them to prove it’s there… So why should I stand up and say “I’m a geek, I like food, and – oh – I’m gay”?

Lucky

It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I’ve actually been really lucky. And no – not because I’ve always been able to fulfil my loves of eating and gadgetry – but because I’ve not once come up against a bad reaction to the way in which I live my life – not once have I had anything other than neutral or positive reactions from people ranging from friends back at secondary school through to colleagues today.

However – Alan Turing, Benjamin Britten & Oscar Wilde – three people I have always greatly admired for very different reasons (notably my love of technology, music, and literature) and who all died long before I was born, weren’t quite as lucky as I’ve been.

Recently I started to think that maybe the reason people take the whole ‘pride’ thing seriously isn’t because they want to draw attention to themselves, but to those people who were ridiculed, persecuted and ultimately doomed for simply being who they were. That said, I wanted to stay true to myself too – and I knew I wasn’t part of the ‘scene’ that so many people I know are. Then, one evening, a good friend of mine inspired me.

Gay and Geeky

There’s no way I could accept that I was the only gay geek in the world of IT, and meeting my good friend Seb confirmed that for me. While I love talking gadgets and technology, it was the first time in an age I’d been able to, in the next breath, talk about relationships and love lives.

It was then that Seb had a lightbulb moment – many of our female friends talked about how great it was to go to the girl geek dinners that were being organized – maybe it was time to organise a gay geek dinner, and see who showed up.

As it happened, quite a lot of people expressed interest and came along – including another one of the people I’d always looked up to, as the photo shows.

That was April last year, and once a month since then we’ve had a dinner and a bunch of help organising them. I’ve met so many new and interesting people – not least my partner – and my own confidence grew as a result. Before I knew it, and without changing who I was, I was making a difference and helping people.

Why tell the story now?

Anyone who knows me will know that I love talking – whether it’s about the fantastic technology I work with, human rights, or what I’m having for dinner. Over the past few months I’ve talked to a lot of people – some not quite as confident or as forthright as I can be. Some who have only recently begun to accept themselves for who they are, or who have only just started to realize that the days aren’t looking as dark as they did for Britten, Wilde and Turing.

And so it’s for them I’ve broken my usual tradition of technology-focussed blog posts and told this story. Come along to the next gay geek dinner – you never know who you might meet!

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to present to a group of technology enthusiasts at the inaugural Reading Geek Night about digital identity. I’m not a big fan of bullet points on slides – and so uploading my PowerPoint from the evening wouldn’t really make a lot of sense. I wanted to capture some of the things I talked about – and the questions I got after the talk – here on my blog.

Not too long ago, I posted about Digital Identity – talking about a few experiences from my own life, and starting to think about the idea of education being the key to cracking the abundance of fear and misunderstanding that starts to show when people start to look at who they are digitally. At the Geek Night, I talked a lot about how to ‘have your cake and eat it too’ when it comes to your personal brand – the idea of being able to have both a private garden and a public playground online.

Eating it too…

I achieve this in a very simple way – I have one outlet online that is closed off, private, and very heavily screened. For that, I use Facebook. If you look for me publicly on Facebook, you see only what I want you to see – a photo, and who my facebook friends are. I could have it set not to show me at all – but I want people from whom I’ve been long disconnected to be able to find me again if they want to. The rest of my profile and activity on Facebook is hidden to all except those I accept as friends on the service.

Simple.

So then there’s my personal brand, or ‘who I am’ digitally and publically. A positive, unified personal brand can really be your best friend – it’s like a wing-man for your professional life. For this, I stick to a few simple rules:

• Keep my avatar unified  and up-to-date
  • Whether it’s Twitter, an about me page, or one of the other many social web applications I use, I maintain the same avatar on all of them. I keep it up-to-date too, so if I change my hair style or appearance, I’ll be recognisable both across all networks, and in the ‘real’ world. I choose it carefully too – a picture really does say a thousand words!
• Have a pre-canned short and long ‘about me’ bio
  • There’s a reason that companies stick with well-known slogans, and it’s in a similar vein that I put a lot of time and effort into having two complimentary bios that I can publish without a second thought. I put a lot of time in to writing both a two paragraph and a 160 character version, and make sure I use them, along with the same avatar, on everything I do publicly.
• Be positive and natural
  • It’s almost subconscious, but people respond better to positive language. Whether it’s a potential future employer, or your mates down the pub, the best thing you can do it ‘think before you post’. Remember that what goes on the Internet, stays on the Internet.

Be not afraid…

One last piece of advice I have – and I can’t stress this enough – is don’t shy away from looking at your digital identity. There are always those people who will never want to have an online presence – but as we move more and more into the age of digital, it’ll get increasingly more difficult not to be connected in some way, shape or form.

That said, your digital identity shouldn’t feel like a chore – it’s who you are after all. Be who you want to be, and you can’t go too far wrong.

Finally, if you do one thing after reading this post, I’d like to think you’d spread the word – make the people around you aware of their digital identities. It might be interesting to see who they think they are, digitally.