Digital Me

I find the whole concept of the online or digital identity quite fascinating. I know there’s been a fair bit of research and writing done in the whole area, although I haven’t read much of it myself.

Saw this post by Steve Wheeler a couple of days ago: Digital Me, Digital You

I took this screenshot from Steve’s slideshow:

(Great photo by Brecht Soenen.)

And then there’s all the discussion around the personal brand. While this is also interesting, I can’t say I have ever actually sat down and thought about what this means for me. Sure, I care about how I present myself, both on- and offline, but I can’t say I’ve planned anything. In fact, how I appear online and what I choose to share/say/do has been rather random and has evolved over time.

And then of course, when I look at myself online, what I see differs from what you see. My Twitter profile, to me, on Tweetbot on the iPad mini:

What do you see?

I recently changed the header and wallpaper for my Twitter profile, so it displays my Chinese name in characters in a particular style. My name is very European-sounding and possibly some might think “Con” is a male name, not realising it’s short for Constance. My Chinese name is not very visible at all in Australia, it appears as my middle name (which is not much used).

And I recently added “Con” in Jawi/Arabic script as well – reading from right to left, the letters are kaf wow noon (k-o-n). Just for the fun of it. As a child in Malaysia I was taught the Jawi script in school. Jawi was derived from Arabic and was used to write the Malay language for centuries (Malay is now written in the Latin alphabet). It was extremely annoying at the time to have to learn this archaic script – sort of like learning Latin, I suppose – but now I love the fact that I know it. (It’s interesting that no one’s asked me about it. Perhaps they haven’t noticed?)

My header used to display this:

It was a picture of a vision board I made during a professional development/leadership session at work. I chose the picture because it was something I’d just done and it was handy at the time, and it was the right shape for a banner, while not being something that I would baulk at having “represent” me. So random…

Words and pictures. They all combine to make particular meaning, but each person who comes across them will interpret them in her own way, using her own experience and preconceptions.

And then there’s the me as listed in the About page of this blog. I looked at it and thought, “I need to update this.” Then I laughed at the idea that I need to update who I am, regularly.