Identity and openness

Last week kicked off on Twitter with Tim Berners Lee talking about a new model for privacy on the internet. The discussion focussed on the need for people to take control and ownership of data, and that the fear of big data and being spied on has make us distrusting......

...therefore do we need to be more comfortable in sharing information and does there need to be better ways of protecting our privacy? 

Of course, when apps request potential access to your data, without telling you what they might use it for, it’s easy to see why people might be distrustful. I was always taught that data protection meant not collecting data that you don’t need, and telling people what you are going to do with that data ( see the recent Whisper stories for an example of companies approaches to privacy and changing terms and conditions).

We often don’t pay much attention to the permissions requests when we sign up to new services. There is a growing distrust of what companies are doing with our data, and I wonder if that has a knock on effect to our ideas of identity and openness?

At the other end of the extreme Pyschology today published an article on why we over share online and the disinhibition effect. The article talks about how anonymity and invisibility cause people to behave in very different ways. It ends however with a bit about authority and how people can feel there is more equality online so they feel more empowered to say the things they may not say offline. I wonder if that is true when it comes to peer creation and peer review?

Most e-safety training starts with asking people if they have googled themselves, or what kind of digital footprint they are creating. (For the record, my take is that we should create positive footprints online, and therefore I encourage adults and young people to use the net creatively, actively and positively : if they want to). Which moves me on to perceptions of others. Most humans worry about what others think of them, even those who say they don’t. When asking a group of teenagers about freedom online this weekend, they were very clear that they had freedom, but that with that freedom comes responsibility; to act appropriately , but also to be called into account if you do something wrong. They also told me how they managed their media. So if they were friends with family on Facebook, then they self-edit what they post there.

But what does this mean for the developing, networked professional? As this week on H818 is about Openness and Privacy, it seems right to be thinking about what this means to me. In the “offline world” I approach people, tasks and work in very different ways, depending on my colleagues, the audience or the environment.  It’s a bit like deciding what clothes to put on. Different audiences require different approaches, in order to engage at the right level (I am thinking about power here), be culturally sensitive, and to communicate the right messages. I am pretty sure this is true when it comes to digital scholarship too. You have to figure out which are the groups you need to join, how to communicate and which communities/resources/publishers are the ones that you need. But where do you start if you are outside of academia. This is something that I will be investigating.

In fact, these thoughts of identity pervade all aspects of our life, whether it’s getting a job, a partner, or a publishing deal. Some of the things that I am involved in outside of work, are partly as a result of what I do in work. I am lucky that I have found a passion in my work, which means I want to part of the bigger debate and I want to be an active voice in making change. However, does my involvement in these things impact my work? I am after all a spoke-person for my organisation, but it doesn’t mean that I am always talking on behalf of my organisation. Hopefully, given that we are values-based, there won’t be too much conflict, but I have become acutely aware of this, and just as I wrestle with my identity and openness as an online practitioner, so I wrestle with my identity and openness as an “offline” practitioner.  And this takes me back to the end of the last blog post. Sometimes, we cannot decide what we share or how open we are, as our jobs (think teachers using Facebook) or circumstances (say foster parents) tell us otherwise.

“My job does not define me”. This was one of my take-away notes following our staff conference, where we were talking about collaboration and team-working across teams and finding and developing expertise. But in order for people to understand this, they need to engage with me, talk to me, work with me, and see my creations. And I think this is the same journey that one must take as an online practitioner. I will be defined by what people see, what I do and how I engage.  

I want to end this post with this fab video from iDea. I think it's a great poem and visual about collaboration and some of the questions that I have (despite me not really be part of that generation)

Endings, beginnings and questions about identity

This week has been about many things, but there all have interwoven themselves across my week, with similar themes popping up into different contexts, converging like a flock of swallows.

On the frivolous end of the spectrum, endings have come in the form of the end of the last series of 24 and Supernatural and the start of new series of Homeland and Gotham (I am very excited about this and you now have an insight into some of the deeper aspect of me). However endings and beginnings were also part of our staff conference on Monday and Tuesday, as we moved out of a period of consultation and into a restructure, and new ways of working. Endings also manifested themselves through the final stages of completing my NSPCC safeguarding trainer training portfolio, although I still have a few thousand words of reflection to write. And beginnings of course as we move into week two of H818 and we start to find our feet as co-learners. It has been particularly challenging to move back into a study routine that involves regular interaction, after studying a module which was predominantly individual working….so bear with me guys!

Power and openness were themes that emerged strongly from the staff conference, where we spent time thinking about identity and team work, and how we can learn to work better together. I worked with colleagues from another department to facilitate the initial team building sessions, which is no mean feat when there are 150 people. We used the activities that we often use with young people, as it generally doesn’t matter how old you are, learning about each other and building trust is the same. The first activity was about asking the right questions and deciding on how much of ourselves we want to give away. People were asked to talk about themselves and then try and find something in common with the person they were talking to. Deciding what to share ultimately leads to different questions and interactions. Some people feel comfortable and confident in sharing more personal aspects of themselves than others do. This is no different online.

We create personas that we are happy with. For some the commonalities may be where they live or the music they like. But if you are willing to give a little bit more of yourself away, you often get a little bit more back, and before you know it a 37 year old woman who works in safeguarding (that’s me), finds that the thing she has in common with the 22 year old male IT service desk analyst is that they both wanted to be vets but got bored of science (teenagers are fickle!).

If we want to be ‘networked practitioners’ then we need to consider identity and openness. I need to identify my role as an individual, but I also need to find things in common with others to start building those networks. And that requires asking questions and giving a bit of me away. We have talked this week, as students, about how we use networking tools like Twitter, and started defining a difference between professional and personal. This is a great place to start the discussions about openness. The more confident I become as a practitioner, the more comfortable I feel about sharing bits of myself, which are maybe more personal.

The connecting cultures iceberg 

(Adapted from L. Robert Kohls’ “Cultural Iceberg”)

 http://www.connectingcultures.org/philosophy.asp

It’s a bit like the cultural iceberg (which came up at a different network meeting later on in the week). As individuals, we consist of our history, experiences and social worlds. Most people see the visible us. But it’s the moments when we share the invisible us, and the common humanity, that we start to develop trust and a better understanding of each other.

For me, my online identity (mainly through twitter), has developed as I grow more confident and share more of myself and my identity, just as it does in the ‘offline’ world. The professional me is the personal me, as it’s all a part of my identity. So it seems that we manage our identities in all aspects of life. We decide when it’s appropriate to share and when it’s not. But of course it’s not always our choice.