My thoughts on identity

I have been working for a while now in the world of social identity management and working with a fantastic team developing a platform that allows people the ability to consolidate social services, create and host content, contacts and images. We talk a lot about “owning your identity” and managing your identity in the work we do. There is a lot of debate on what identity means and how we can claim what we do with out really engaging what identity has come to mean in our society.

For me personally identity is not my Social Security Number, Drivers License Number, Checking Account Number or other number. They are important but, mean nothing to me and represent what I an only classify as a necessary evil in modern society.

Identity to me can be summarized into 5 descriptive categories:

1. Personal Image: How you choose to personally represent yourself. Some of us have issues (just being real) and choose to hide (yes hide) behind avatars, clip art or images that are definitely not the actual user. There are in fact others of us who choose to be ourselves and embrace the openness and connectivity the web make available to us and the opportunities that come from being approachable. You personal image is the single strongest facet of personal branding one can make. Your image is the package that you (the product) is wrapped in and displayed as.

2. Personal Description: How you choose to describe yourself contextually is the next form of identity. Think of all the online forms that ask you describe yourself. The audience you are engaging will determine the message you present. Professional = Professional, Social=Social and so on. How you describe yourself can be considered the ingredients, the integrity behind the packaging and the brand. Describing oneself is probably one of the hardest things to do and one of the most critical to building integrity behind the image.

3. Images Association: The images you choose to adorn your life space with (your office, your home, your bedroom, your car, your site) speak volumes towards your identity. They add dimension to your personal identity, associate you to groups, lifestyles, likes, dislikes and so on…Think of the all the sites out there where we (as individuals) have customized the images of the background to give depth to our identity. Can be surf, cars, bling, girls, liquor, landscapes, code, celebrities, events, friends, political, space and so on…all of these tell the next chapter in identity and give others an insight into what elements you consider part of your being.

4. Contextual Association: The verbiage used as a description beyond the brand image and the ingredients (Personal Image and Personal Description). When products “stick” to you and you are inspired to act (purchase) it is usually through contextual association. It is your personal tag line. Think about the iPod, Apple did a fantastic job of engaging their target audience by using music that was a big part of their target demographics world. Coldplay, U2 and The Verve. The lyrics more than anything drove the message of “cool” that Apple needed to engage their audience. The text we associate with our identity is a key facet to sharing/building our identity. We use quotes from books, recent events and iconic personalities to express our views or attitudes and hopefully use it to attract other like-minded individuals and build our brand.

5. Personal Associations: otherwise known as your “contacts”. This where we get to celebrate our successes and show off our social wealth through our social capital. How many followers on twitter, how many friends on Facebook, connections on Linked In…it all relates to relevance and social wealth. If I have a large number of “friends” I must be an authority on my identity therefore I am the alpha and you want to know me…follow me…friend me…connect to me…thus perpetuating the cycle. In consumer branding speak it the products you are grouped with speak to your value and relevance. In personal speak, who you show as your “friend” or contact will add yet another facet to your identity and your relevance in your chosen social sphere.

Online identity has been a very widely debated topic as of recent with many different approaches to control, sharing, managing, creating, editing and deleting. The fact of the matter is that the web is an open and wide canvas and the is NO way to control what can or will be posted, shared or created about you. What is out there now, is out there forever, embrace it, learn from it and enjoy it.

Fortunately for us there are many new initiatives that are introduced by both established companies and "startups" that seek to help us do this better. Their efforts are making it possible for individual’s personal brands and to become established in a way that makes the web a powerful personal tool. I am encouraged and excited by the discussions I have been apart of and or followed about this movement underfoot by so many in the tech community and feel the future is looking good.