We've all heard the old saying...
You are not who you think you are
You are not who others think you are
You are who you think others think you are
That’s useful for introspection exercises; but it does not help as a guideline for living.
In the physical world, VERY FEW professionals rely exclusively on "official" identity markers -- like job title. We know who to go to for information and insight, and we go to them -- regardless the job title. Similarly, we know who not to trust on certain topics, even if their boss has been hoodwinked into believing they are credible on the topic. We make very sophisticated and subtle distinctions in the physical world, based upon our past experience with a person or upon the experiences of other colleagues with that person.
In the digital world, which includes internet and intranets, we are mere babes when it comes to identity. If you've never seen Dick Hardt's Identity 2.0 presentation (available here as a Flash stream), it’s worth watching as you think about professional collaboration communities. The power of those communities grows exponentially as the number of contributors grows, so there’s a strong incentive to recruit. But, those wonderful economics are predicated upon (1) recruiting the right kind of members, (2) allowing them to establish personal domains of expertise, and (3) creating subtle markers of credibility/authority for each individual.
So, setting aside for the moment the question of whether there is something spiritually transcendent about life ....
Professionally, I am
The things I say and do
What I create
Where I associate
What others say about me
How are we going to develop identity and trust models for the digital world that are as rich as nuanced as those we use in the real world?
Comments