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.