Controlling Your Online Persona
I’ll be honest here - I hold my personal brand with utmost value. When you live on the internet for work and play as much as I do there is a lot of “you” out there and often times it can be problematic. More than once, I’ve had a case of mistaken identity due to the fact my full name is not entirely unique.
Misinformed Crazies Will Find You
Most recently a high schooler found “Kyle Bradshaw” on Facebook - she must’ve had an online romance or something because she was heated mad at “Kyle Bradshaw” when she discovered he was a 26 year old computer GEEK living in Boston with a girlfriend and a cat named Cleo. She had basically gone from mild mannered high school girl to private investigator extraordinaire picking apart my online identity in her own estrogen-enhanced personal drama. Although it’s not very hard, she was no Matlock - a simple google query will land you here without struggle. The transcript of the entire ordeal is available here for those interested.
As unnerving as the whole experience was at the time I don’t regret having my life out there in the ether. I did get paranoid that my address was published on my resume so I quickly pulled that for fear of psychotic-high-school-girl-obsessions. Maybe I’d get a severed parakeet head in my mailbox or something - I dunno. Either way that drama broke the camels back.
The Importance of Having a Persona
It is very important to the type of work I do to be “out there”. However, on the grand scale of things I am a fairly private person for someone that has their life so publicly available. I want to control as much as my personal brand as possible because the Internet has an exceptional memory. I always consider the potential implications of anything I publish, pictures I upload, messages I post, etc. Some people don’t seem to give a rats ass about such things but it’s important to me. Good Karma, Good Reputation, Respectability and Honesty are things that I strive for.
To boot if you want to be recognizable out there you need an appealing, memorable moniker. Whether you’re notasausage, or you go by made up words like adactio it’s important that you have your own voice to differentiate yourself from the millions of Internet citizens.
Online, my handle is somedirection. Why? Not because Kyle060481 sounded too cool for school, but because I identified with it. I started as nodirection back in my college days because by my 3rd year I realized that I didn’t want the degree that I originally set out to get, then I graduated! Thus SOMEdirection was born. I’m not entirely sure what the next step in my username evolution will be honestly (haha). I just know that I love what I do and I’m going to keep doing it as long as it’s paying the bills.
With the creation of handle/alias/moniker sometimes people don’t identify you as your name but as your handle. I found this was the case for me before I went to South By Southwest in Austin where I finally met my colleagues face to face. Stop Design became Douglas Bowman, Clagnut became Richard Rutter, Slayer Office became Steve Chipman, Mezzoblue became Dave Shea, sometimes you discover new acquaintances are NOT sausages - you get the point.
Beyond the “name” there’s also a huge opportunity to brand a logo as yourself. These can be instantly recognizable if done right. Inman, Haney, and Moll come to mind. I was quite surprised the other day when I went to view ObamaNews [pic] on Twitter and 
stood out to me like a sore thumb instantly. I was very surprised I even noticed it but I shouldn’t be - it’s light blue color is loud but not overbearing and it stands out from its neighbors in its simplicity.
I need to get a logo that stands by itself and can be instantly recognizable. I’ve put it off for so long because I can never make anything cool enough that I would want to represent me (I would love to hire a talented designer to help me with this).
Persona Evolution
The creation of a handle itself comes with responsibility. There are numerous “Kyle Bradshaw”s out there, but only one somedirection. It’s important that this username represents me everywhere I sign up for a new service, comment on a blog, or join a forum.
Do you have any thoughts good or bad about online personas? Do you have one already or are you planning on creating one? Do you even care how you are perceived on the net? Feedback greatly appreciated.
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Man I almost missed it! I didn’t even notice before looking at my archives today. I launched this blog on March 3rd 2007 right before I left for SXSW last year. I was burning the midnight oil for about a week straight to get it up. I’m happy to stay I’ve stuck with it. Previously I had a hard time sticking with it. I’ve gone through lulls of sporadic posts and periods of hyperactive posting but all in all I’m happy with the past year.
