Paul Jones has posted the writeup for tomorrow’s panel:
What: THIS CONVERSATION IS BEING BLOGGED: Our lives, online, all the time, in the trend towards lifelogging
When: 12:30 to 1:30pm March 29th, 2007
Where: Pleasants Family Room in Wilson Library at UNC-CH
Who: A Panel Discussion Led by Dr. Deborah Barreau, with panelists Paul Jones, Dr. Cal Lee, Dr. Jeffrey Pomerantz, Terrell Russell, and Chirag Shah [note – librarians have arranged the speakers in alphabetic order by last name]
Presented by: ASIS&T-UNC
We’re each going to have a short statement designed to invite discussion. I’ve included mine here…
My provocative issue revolves around the fuzzy (read: disappearing) line between what is personal and what is global. The publishing and technical tools are so easy, powerful and available today we find it very simple to connect with those doing the same kind of work as ourselves. It shrinks the world. We can find our colleages – or they find us.
However, it also makes it easier than ever to blur the line between personal and professional, global and local. As we continue to share and discuss and leave our breadcrumbs for all the search engines of both today and tomorrow to spider and remember forever – do we think any of it’s really private? Surely not – or we wouldn’t be putting it online, right?
Our identity consolidates to what is findable about us. We may project these different personas – in different contexts to different parties – but when push comes to shove, we’re only one person. When someone *really* knows you, they know the real you – whatever that means.
When we navigate in the physical world we’ve always known, we understand how information leaks and moves. There aren’t too many invisible audiences and we ‘get’ how gossip and white lies work. We have an innate understanding of our audience and what they’re capable of – how much we can tell them and how much of it will ‘get back’ to the other audience(s).
What’s happening today – and from here forward I’d guess – is different. There’s been a shift in the last few years – our audience is significantly more hidden and large and ‘forever’.
When everything is recorded, who is the audience?
Is it yourself? Your children? Your friends? Your boss? Your next boss?
Who should it be?
Can we reasonably believe we can have more than one, that we can separate them one from another?
Those of us who are writing online, involving ourselves in this conversation, are we thinking about five years from now? 25 years from now? 100? Is what you’re saying today going to stand up in the future? Does any of this really matter?
While I’m concerned about the privacy implications of all this self-recording, I’m more fascinated with the perceptions of those broadcasting themselves about their own projection – their own sense of what the world sees in them.
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[…] I’m feeling a bit of peer pressure here: Paul and Terrell both wrote about their topics ahead of time, and I didn’t. So I’ll write about it now. […]
[…] Terrell Russell wonders about the “perceptions of those broadcasting themselves about their own projection – their own sense of what the world sees in them.” Jeff Pomerantz skeptically asked several times, “Are you that interesting?” during the panel, and points out in his blog that most of what we do is boring and really has no place being captured or shared. This is more in the context of ubiquitous capture, but the overall opinion of many seems to be the same regarding personal blogging. Jeff also seemed to criticize blogging as a form of exhibitionism. […]
[…] This Old Network Ideas on interconnections, identity, and information from all sides. « This conversation is being blogged – ASIST panel […]
[…] Terrell writes about his brief panel statement on his blog here. UPDATE: Jeff Pomerantz writes about the panel in retrospect on his blog here. UPDATE: Kristina […]