State of my Digital Self

When I created this blog last July, my goal was to brand myself online and to create an online persona that would represent me, my thoughts and my values with the goal of becoming visible and gaining the respect and recognition of my peers in the software development world.

I started blogging without caring about the whether I was right or not with the assumption that the process of learning that takes place while writing is more important to me than being right. I have, after all, the rest of my life to be right.

I opened a Twitter account with the intent of meeting new people and hoping that a few would follow me. What I discovered, however, is that Twitter is at its best when you use it to follow the right people. That is, following people you want to meet or that something that you don't, be it skills, money or fame. That is the magic of Twitter and that is how I got to go to the best conference I've ever been to and meet people who would have a lot to teach me, and still do continuously!

I'm also on LinkedIn. However, I'm not sure I have uncovered the key to that social networking site yet. I don't know how to make it work for me. It is a great place for people to examine your professional past and references, but that's about it so far. I'm sure I'm missing something, but what? I need to look into it some more.

Then there's Shelfari, a social site where you can advertise the books you've read, the ones you'd like to read and the ones you own. Seems interesting. I opened up an account just a couple days ago so we'll see where that takes me.

And last but not least: Facebook. I do not have an account on Facebook simply because I never understood it. I used to have an account on MySpace and I hated it. Should I do Facebook? Is it different? I guess I'll have to check it out. Today!