PittGirl and the Trouble With Being Anonymous

As most Pittsburgh bloggers have already noted, veteran 'burgh blogger PittGirl has closed up shop (although she's still Twittering). Easily the most popular blogger in the area, she was also a mystery of sorts, due to her strident anonymity. And, in the end, it appears that a potential compromise of her anonymity is what led to her decision to commit blogging seppuku.

As much as PittGirl's anonymity was the "hook" of her self-created brand, it was her writing style that kept her core fans coming back for more. (After all, a mystery is interesting, but a comedy is eternal.) So it's ironic that her anonymity -- aka the packaging that surrounded her REAL product, her writing -- would be what ends up robbing her fans of the opportunity to enjoy more of what they've come to enjoy.

It's a bit like Reese Cups going off the market because someone told them they had to change their wrappers to green instead of orange; I sincerely doubt the Reese Cup fans would stop eating their favorite candy due to a packaging change any more than PittGirl's readers would have unbookmarked her if they knew her name.

But PittGirl's decision to walk away is less about the foibles of packaging than it is about the cultural problem that led to the packaging conundrum in the first place: the need to be anonymous.

Who... ARE You?

In her case, PittGirl genuinely believed that blogging under her real name might get her fired (or, to speak the parlance, Dooced.) Whether that concern was real or perceived, it was a risk she wasn't willing to take. But why did it have to be a risk in the first place?

Why is society so uptight about what its citizens say?

Why should what YOU, the employee, say or do in public directly affect anyone's perception of your company?

Because everyone is afraid. Of what? Of everyone else? Despite the fact that we no longer have to fight one another for food and shelter, we still live in a constant subconscious fear of what everyone else THINKS of us -- and we all believe that ANY OTHER PERSON could squash our lives just by blinking.

That has to stop.

Who Do You Think You Are, Anyway?

Are we still operating in the perceptual Dark Ages, where we believe that everyone else is as perfect as they claim to be? Does showing a glimpse of humanity, a personal flaw or a whiff of disagreement with the party line automatically brand a person as "dangerous," worthy of being shunned or shown the door?

Why do we give companies the benefit of the doubt, but not the people who WORK in those companies? (And your instincts might lead you to believe that we actually do just the opposite, but if we did, why would people be afraid to post photographs of themselves at a party on their Facebook account for fear that an HR troll would find a reason to fire them as a result?)

Something tells me that PittGirl would have been ENCOURAGED to blog on behalf of her company if all she had to say was glowing and positive. So why does society only want to reward the people who DON'T encourage us to improve upon the status quo? What good is a coal mine without a canary?

And, in the extreme, what is it that any one person could possibly say or do that's SO MUCH WORSE than what any of the rest of us could say or do?

Look around. I guarantee you that everyone sitting near you right now is hiding a secret that they think would make you shun them for life, IF YOU ONLY KNEW.

Guess what, people: if we shunned everyone who had a secret, we'd all be eating alone forever.

So let's each grow some backbone and admit to a very unpleasant truth: that not everyone will like us ALL the time -- including (for various reasons) our employees, friends and families. Get over it. The ones who tell you how wrong you are from time to time are the ones you can trust when they actually tell you you're right.

And as for the anonymous folks out there, whether you're noble or trolls, here's a thought: whatever you have to say is far more resonant when you believe it enough to say it with a straight face -- preferably your own.

(Secret?) Identities

Christopher Penn has a pair of very valid blog posts about how the Web 2.0 is quickly becoming the Matrix 2.0, and on the value of protecting your brand name assets on Twitter.

This got me thinking about a number of related topics.

Self-Defense Real Estate

- Do you own the URL of your name (i.e. "YOU dot com")? If you don't, who does?
- Do you own all available comparison URLs of your name ("YOU dot net, YOU dot tv, etc.)?

If you don't, or if you believe you're "not important enough" to need to, let me ask you this: what happens when you ARE "important enough" to become a household name, even in a very small circle?

Chances are, you'll BECOME popular because other people are talking about you... and other people may realize the value of your name before you do.

The savvy people are out there right now, buying up every URL associated with their own names, "just in case."

The savvier people are out there buying up every URL associated with OTHER PEOPLE'S names...

HappyBaptism.com

- Do you own the URLs for your children's names?

Let's presume that the web, as we know it, is here to stay, and that URLs will still be a valid way around the information superhighway in another 20-30 years.

How many of us have children who -- like ourselves -- may someday grow up to "be someone"?

Imagine how grateful you'd be, as a kid, knowing that your online identity was safely registered by your parents before you could even clutch a mouse. It certainly beats the alternative: knowing that you'll someday need to buy that URL back from some black market identities dealer who's currently using it as an affiliate site.

All Websites Are Actually Real Estate Agencies

- Is your profile registered on MySpace? Facebook? Digg? Twitter? Technorati?...

I recently joined Virb, a new social networking site... or, rather, STBD did.

I initially saw Virb as a new networking / marketing tool -- a cleaner version of MySpace -- so I registered a profile for Something to Be Desired. As I'm writing this post, I realize I haven't yet signed up as myself yet... so I just did.

I could (and should) do the same for every other social networking site on the planet... and every other web app that could be used for marketing, communication and brand imaging. So should you.

EVERY WEBSITE is a potential link into your world -- or your brand / product / business -- for someone else.

Think I'm joking? Google me. What do you see?

As of today, the top search results are:

- Something to Be Desired (the web sitcom I produce)
- The STBD blog
- This blog
- My Technorati tag
- My Blogger profile (including my AIM handle)
- A Jeff Pulver blog post referencing me
- Bryan Person's audio interview with me from PodCamp Boston
- STBD's Network2 show page
- A Chris Brogan interview with me from April of last year
- My MyFeedz tag

Observations?

- The easiest way for people to find me is through my work.
- Blogger and Network2 are ways to find me that I have AT LEAST SOME CONTROL OVER.
- Technorati and MyFeedz tags are ways to find me that I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER.
- Pulver, Person and Brogan's blog posts are also inbound links to my life that I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER.

Two other interesting notes:

- The Brogan interview was several pages down on my personal Google search results in April of last year. (Yes, I ego-surf.) Since then, Brogan and I have each seen our profiles rise, to the point that this same once-buried interview is now hot stuff.

- My MyFeedz tag actually produces no results. I've never even heard of MyFeedz until just now. But evidently other people have, and whatever is said about me there will have a much better chance of being heard by others than what I might say myself on, say, the PodCamp Pittsburgh Feedback page, which doesn't appear until the fourth page of Google search results.

What Does This Mean?

- You'll never have 100% control of how you're viewed by other people -- especially online.
- You DO have SOME control over how you're viewed -- and you should take those opportunities to stake your claim (and "defend your brand").
- You never know when your profile on an arbitrary website, a comment you've left on a blog or something you say in an interview will be stumbled upon by someone else, and THAT WILL BE SOMEONE'S FIRST IMPRESSION OF YOU.

Each of us needs to decide exactly how much of a "public persona" we're interested in cultivating online, and how much of a "private persona" we're willing to live without.

Think Michael Jackson had it bad walking down the street in the '80s without being recognized? That's nothing compared to what Britney Spears contends with from Perez Hilton on a daily basis -- or what you face thanks to Google, MySpace, WordPress, Twitter...