I am SOOOO wasted! Maybe I shouldn’t be blogging right now . . .

in blogging, blogs, connect, social media, twitter by faryl on December 23rd, 2008No Comments

OK. That’s not really true. Not true at all, actually. I’m sitting here sober as can be, sipping on herbal tea in my pj’s.

cocktailgoggles This past weekend’s trip to Las Vegas, paired with my testing out 12second’s new iphone app, got me thinking:

What is the threshold of “blogging professionalism” ?

At the end of the day, this is a personal blog – I’m only representing myself, no one is paying me to write here, I don’t have any clients to lose, no sponsors to offend. So is there a “professional standard” I need to uphold?

Is there a line drawn in some virtual sand that I should be careful not to cross?

I’ve made the decision to – from a social networking standpoint – make my life an open book. I freely share my online profiles and don’t censor their content. Any separation of life-streams is done out of consideration for their audience; to avoid hammering my readers with updates each time my cat does something too-cute-for-words, to spare my friends from a deluge of social-media related links.

In other words, any of you can click around to see what I’m up to when I’m not on Twitter or writing. You can see pictures of where I’ve recently gone on holiday or find me tagged in photos. We might share a toast at social media events. Truth be told, I’m not a huge partier, I rarely drink. So – what would be the harm in a bit of cocktail-enhanced blogging?

I think it boils down to TMI and self-respect.

TMI (too much information)

TMI is what happens when you go just a bit too far in coloring in the image others have formed of you in their minds. To an extent, our impressions of others are a bit like swiss cheese and we fill in the holes however we see fit. The more we get to know someone, the more holes filled in with some version of reality. TMI happens when when one of those holes is replaced with an image you just didn’t need to have.

I’ll go out on a limb and say BUI (Blogging Under the Influence) would likely impair one’s online inhibitions, greatly increasing the likelihood of a TMI incident occurring. Which definitely can impact your . . .

this + blogging = bad idea?

Self Respect

BUI is like drunk dialing on steroids. A drunk dialing scenario is limited to the (hopefully) handful of phone call recipients (unless voicemail is involved). Drunk dialing recipients are generally confined to the population of people in your contacts. BUI’s reach is infinite – your audience unknown.

I wouldn’t want to wake up wondering if – praying that – I dreamed the previous night’s stream of “I love you, man” calls. Certainly I don’t want to look back on anything I’ve written and regret what I’ve said, much less be embarrassed by it. I’m proud of my blog and wouldn’t want anything to take away from the work I put into it.

Perhaps the true question then is

How much do I care about my reputation?

When phrased that way, the answers stop being merely about any blogging standards or concepts of online professionalism. This is another example of ways in which the internet reflects the “outernet” – our offline lives. My actions online are not just a reflection of me, they are me - I’m the one putting the information out there.

So I strive to apply the same amount of pride, restraint, and self-respect to my online life as I do to my offline life – whatever those thresholds may be.

And just to be safe, I take precautions like this!