There comes a time for everyone online to answer questions such as, “What is the best way to share myself online? How much do I push content out, versus engaging in conversation? Do I merge my personal chatter with friends and family with the business side of me that communicates with bosses, clients, and vendors?”
Everyone asks those questions; many ask it many times.
The 1984 film, “Ghostbusters,” plays a pivotal role in this blog post. Do you remember the dialogue about 30 minutes in between the characters of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis?
Egon Spengler: There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.
Peter Venkman: What?
Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.
Venkman: Why?
Spengler: It would be bad.
Venkman: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, “bad”?
Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Venkman: Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
My thanks to people around the world, maybe you, for submitting memorable quotes into the film’s entry at the Internet Movie Database.
Have you ever attended a corporate holiday party? The ones I’ve been to included not only payroll workers, but also the occasional spouse, child, former worker, or external colleague. Once a corporate holiday party comprises attendees from the personal side of things, the corporate brand is perceived to be all-encompassing. The personal and professional streams crossed. They always cross.
Monica O’Brien elaborates:
Personal branding is a conundrum for most people – we don’t want to be boring or sales-ish or an expert and we don’t want to be wild or gossipy or strange, and the two worlds are unmashable, like trying to force two magnets with opposite charges to touch. There is no win, no way to talk to people in our personal and professional lives the same way.
But it has to be done, because there is also no way to separate our personal lives from our professional ones.
I can identify with this sense of wanting to belong to two worlds. I’ve struggled with it since the summer when I announced my candidacy for public office and created a campaign blog and outposts on Facebook and Twitter, separate from my personal/business Facebook and Twitter profiles. I had, and still have, one set of Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for local politics and supporters and the other set for, well, everything and everyone else.
The balancing act worked fine during my campaign; but since my victory election, I’ve been unsure how to manage it — how to cross the streams. I don’t know if I should even try to intermingle the two. This was a partial cause of my Twitter reincarnation a month before Election Day and my Facebook rebirth a week after.
I think I know what I should do. I think I should cross the streams.
Scroll up to the film dialogue that occurred in the first 30 minutes. This next bit of dialogue occurred in the final 30 minutes.
Spengler: I have a radical idea. The door swings both ways, we could reverse the particle flow through the gate.
Venkman: How?
Spengler: [hesitates] We’ll cross the streams.
Venkman: ‘Scuse me Egon? You said crossing the streams was bad!
Stantz: Cross the streams…
Venkman: You’re gonna endanger us, you’re gonna endanger our client – the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog…
Spengler: Not necessarily. There’s definitely a *very slim* chance we’ll survive.
[pause while they consider this]
Venkman: [slaps Stantz] I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! LET’S DO IT!
Amber Naslund shares her take on stream crossing:
To me, they’re one and the same. Who I am professionally is very much who I am personally. And my belief is that in order to deliver myself, my capabilities and my trustworthiness as obviously and clearly as possible to people, I don’t want the appearance that I’m acting differently in one world than I would in another.
It’s the WYSIWYG philosophy. I want to know that what people are seeing and feeling when they interact with me is “Amber” first and foremost. Whether I’m acting in my capacity as a Radian6 representative, a business adviser, a horse enthusiast or a friend, I want them to know that they’ll always get a consistent sense of “me.”
Naslund’s words sing to me. I can identify with this.
I already have two blogs — here at AriWriter, where I share my thoughts and best practices on social media and online marketing; and over there at my unnamed campaign/council blog. I also have two Facebook pages — one for anyone who wants to support, follow, and engage with my Newburyport political and civic updates; and another page for anyone who wants something similar for my business.
Those blogs and Facebook pages will continue, for they have different audiences.
I have one LinkedIn profile, one internet radio DJing profile, and one site to share my uploaded photos. And so forth with other single personas on social networking sites.
Which leads to Twitter, the subject of too many strategies I’ve shared with you this year. I manage a half dozen accounts with different frequencies of updating, but only two are relevant to this discussion: @ariherzog and @ari4newburyport. A few days ago, I edited the bio of the latter and alerted my followers there that I’d use the account for 95% broadcasting, suggesting people engage with dialogue with me at my more personal @ariherzog.
Crossing the streams is a dangerous thing to do, as Spengler suggests, but like O’Brien’s insistence it’s destined to occur and Naslund’s illustrating why she does it, I figure I ought to consider it, too. Thoughts?
UPDATE: On January 3, 2010, I crossed the streams. I’ve marked my @ari4newburyport account as inactive and decided to tweet what would have been there as @ariherzog. That’s who I am, and that’s who I’d like you to interact with me as. My blogs and FB pages remain separate, as they have distinct audiences.
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From what I have seen — mainly in the law enforcement community, though I think this extends to the general public too, even if they can’t or won’t articulated it — is not all that different from the fundamental problem with crossing proton streams. People fear that crossing the streams will make power uncontrollable. That by giving up control, they will become vulnerable.
For cops this means that bad guys — or maybe even regular everyday people — will know enough of the things that make them tick to take advantage of them on the street. I’d argue that the ones who are online, crossing personal with professional, already have a strong sense of their own boundaries, what they’re comfortable with putting out there vs. not. That doesn’t describe the vast majority of cops, though.
I think civilians feel this way, too. In business it’s fear of competition; in personal life, well, we all remember times when someone took our heart and soul and used it to stab us in the back. Maybe it was an idea we had that they stole. Or a position we wanted at work that they jockeyed us for and won.
So I guess my question is, how do you figure out acceptable risk, and how do you set boundaries… so that you come across as confident and happy to share, able to handle whatever happens vs. fearful of the alternative?
New from Christa M. Miller: A starting point for professional officer development: LinkedIn