We are used to the humorous side of unprofessional things we do online, typified by the recent Barclays Digital Eagle Adverts.
It’s tupacaintdead69@hotmail.co.uk…
We are all now, whether we know it or not – building a professional online profile. Only a digital madman would post anything erring on the controversial side. The days of stirring up a hot debate on Facebook with an edgy status are gone. Unless it’s a fashionable Guardian Article slamming the Government, you’re not likely to see much Political fracas online – never mind blatant racism in the Ms Sacco case.
As we’ve discussed on my blogs recently, nothing you do online is deleted. With GCHQ with ‘Project Karma‘, building an online profile of you using your accounts. Where even websites such as Pornhub and other Google searches attributed to you by the spying agency. Where they gather over 60 billion pieces of data about our online habits each day.
This need for privacy and professionalism online wasn’t thought of in futurology, I think one incident sums it up perfectly: Google Glass Bar Fight.
Online, we have a choice to go online or not, but by being recorded by other people and having normal life digitized, we lose our true freedom of expression.
Having a professional online profile is very important – you don’t want to offend or put people off from hiring you, where you also want to be able to show off your abilities. But I think that is where the building of the professional profile should stay – in cyberspace. We shouldn’t become enslaved by the vision of a professional image in sacrifice of everyday liberties we take for granted.
So yes, I do think that changing your email account from footymadmatt@live.co.uk to mattbaker@live.co.uk is a reasonable change. So too is creating a LinkedIn profile.
Creating a your own Digital Brand, is a good and effective way of doing this. So simply for me, I signed up to a website to make all of my online profiles have the same photo. This is a first step in creating your online brand – making your pages uniform and unique to you.
Could you be spied on using technology?
But these steps is where it should end, I think the future of wearable technology presents a change. Online we are accountable for what we do online, as anyone can see it. But what we say between friends isn’t. Which raises the question, with all the new technology in wearables coming through, will we now have to behave as we do online in our day to day lives?
An interesting video to dwell on about digital usages.
Image Sources:
http://www.deviantart.com/art/back-To-The-Future-482544203 by Steve Conman
http://www.barclays.co.uk/digitaleagles video screenshot.
http://www.007.info/?doing_wp_cron=1446496646.4138340950012207031250 Copyright by James Bond International Fan Club
A Bright New start 
Hi Todd!
Thank you for an insightful read. Considering the use of wearable technology, I think we may have already crossed the line of others being able to see what we do in real life. I say this considering all the Facebook videos that have gone viral, like this one where the girl has now actually gone to prison for her crime http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3089827/Girl-14-charged-video-boy-punched-face-goes-viral.html. And most of these videos were filmed with a mobile phone. I do however agree with you that to protect our professional profiles, they should stay in cyberspace. But as you have illustrated, is that a realistic dream?
Although, there can be positives to linking our real life with our online professional one. What if employers are looking for the person you are on your personal social media is who they are looking for, and they overlook your professional profile because it is just that – too professional? I think we have to consider who we want our target market to be and make ourselves most appealable to them, not to thousands.
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Hey there Bryony!
Yes, I was one of the many to be disgusted by that online viral video. In relation to the ‘Realistic Dream’, I agree that it doesn’t really seem a realistic dream – clearly it has it’s positives with the arrival of the aforementioned case arriving at court. But I think the realistic battle now is to try and have people personally restrict their use of social media and drop the facade in which people build, a theorectical media build bubble which people have around them. I think the best case to illustrate this recently is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-34707116 .
You do make some very good points, as yes, our personal profiles can tell what you are as a person more than an ‘endorsement’ on LinkedIn. But nowadays you can’t please everyone and someone is bound to not like something on your profile, so I think it would be more likely to detrimental.
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Hi Todd, great blog! It was good to see someone willing to push against the flow a little. I think many people are afraid to admit that they don’t want to be constantly watching and updating their online professional profile. I agree with you in that we need to recognise there needs to be a balance between our personal and professional lives. I think people including employers should realise, you can be extremely professional whilst still wanting time to yourself. However, would you agree that networking can offer some big benefits in terms of keeping up to date with your industry, engaging with others and also challenging yourself? I do agree that it cannot be allowed to dominate our lives but doesn’t the internet provide some substantial benefits in networking and can networking not also take place in the real world too? Check out this article for more on this.
http://blog.gonitro.com/2015/07/4-networking-tips-for-events/
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