For those who haven’t visited the site (and I encourage you to do so by clicking on my name), I have a little handy-dandy survey that should take about two minutes flat asking the simple question: can you write three words to describe me, please?

@Havi – Hey look at you commenting here way back when! I think I was like: okay she has a duck. Um… whatever! How strange the world is and lesson learned because now that I know you a little better, I see that I had not taken the opportunity earlier when I could have.

I am like a lot in this comments thread – I’m not going to let it all hang out, but neither am I going to ever be an ‘inauthentic me’. I think people deserve to get a genuine view of me, can probably see through it if I’m not and as a previous poster said, if they don’t like what they see, then I probably am not going to want to be working with them in the future in any case. On the down-side, I am now probably seen by all to be borderline psychotic with a mind that skips over into a trillion places at once… but I prefer to see it as creative and quirky

There are so many boring and/or fear-mongering social media posts out there, and it’s always reassuring to be here and get a thoughtful, insightful analysis for a change.

I also don’t “tweet on eggshells” (thanks, Crystal!).

Though I do tend to hope that the picture that emerges through my blog, Twitter, other social media stuff will be both cohesive on the one hand, and eclectic/varied on the other.

Lots of food for thought. And a very nice take on what has become mostly a tired subject.

I feel, being a sustainability consultant, that part of what I do is function as an educator, and someone who makes this topic that may be unfamiliar and intimidating, friendly and accessible. And part of feeling comfortable diving into those waters is having someone you feel comfortable working with and asking the “dumb” questions. I feel I represent that on Twitter, and don’t feel a need to have more then one account. Daisyavenue does have more then one account, so that she can more cleanly represent the brand on her other account, and that works for her in terms of the type of business she works for.

I do still choose what I say, but then again I choose to say and share more then I have anywhere else. In a way, being for the most part quite transparent, you then have nothing to hide when it comes to clients that come to know you via social media. There you are, and they can choose to work with you or not. Great.

I’m totally honest and upfront, I say what comes to mind and yes, I swear and complain and whine but I also share memories and art and imagery. I make deep and lasting connections that have spillt over into my real world as well.

I have this belief, it doesn’t work for everyone, but its mine.

If I throw it all on the table, or in this case “cyberspace”, there is nothing but honesty, to myself, to my readers, to the world. Its not shoved under a rug eating away at me and there are no skeletons to haunt me later if I didn’t hide anything in the first place.

Whatever it is, it must work because I get a good number of “hits” daily for a personal diary that isn’t x-rated.

Another thing I have discovered in my blogging experiences: have a hit counter but don’t look at it or you may get either cold feet or the feeling that you need to produce more to make people happy.

Like life – you can’t make everyone happy all of the time. After time, the people who really do mesh with you will still be there and the people who don’t are long gone and didn’t matter anyhow.

Great topic and comments about this. I took a shot a while ago about blogging about a similar topic with a cartoon (of course, that is what I publish weekly!). The link to the specific cartoon on this topic is:

http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2008/01/15/social-networking-and-scrum-is-there-any-connection-in-reality/

Thanks for sharing this!

- mike vizdos
http://www.michaelvizdos.com
http://www.implementingscrum.com

@Meryl – I know how you feel. Business aside, generally people don’t want to hear when we’re feeling down (at least, not too often–sometimes the support can be helpful but nobody wants to follow a “downer”). One way I’ve found to have my cake and eat it too is that if I complain, I at least try to make it funny so people are entertained.