Digital Biographer™

I always fancied myself as a revolutionary… and now ‘The Times’ has made reference to me as the “digital biographer” in an article entitled:

Log on and rediscover the generation gap
Facebook and MySpace are in the vanguard of a social revolution.

The article outlines ‘a vast shift taking place in how a younger generation is defining its social life and privacy‘ and gives a glimpse into the workings on online social networks for those who may find the erms superpoking, wall-posting and hikkuping quite alien.

Although I do appreciate mention in The Times, I had to send them a note to clarify that my prices start from £369, for a profile makeover here at Ecademy - a fact that was perhaps a little more clearly outlined in a BBC interview earlier this month: “Meet the digital biographer“

As a no longer strictly youthful 43, I can imagine that I might want some or all of my youthful scribblings and photographs, so important to my self-image and my peers perhaps 20-25 years ago, to not be accessible to my peers now. Luckily for me (and probably the world at large) there was nowhere to upload that material until I was in my thirties. (I only got a PC in 1985 and email address in 1987)

However, something the article set me thinking about is that perhaps there is a future business model for MySpace, Facebook etcetera in simply allowing people to airbrush their history when they wish to? A “digital eraser” might cost you an ‘administration fee’ perhaps, and a total ‘whitewash’ will involve you visiting several sites, or having an agent act to remove your footprint across different networks. For a more considerable fee, you might pay to have your records sanitised rather than erased, so that you seem like an all round clean living model of perfection to prospective employers / partners / insurance companies / credit agencies?

As a pointer to this trend, there are sites that have aggregated such content and can pinpoint your membership of social networks, and act as ‘reputation lookup’ services such as Rapleaf…

Full article at The Times Online: Log on and rediscover the generation gap

digital biographer, online identity, social media

Originally published at Ecademy.com on 27th July 2007: Link to Original

I’ve been very surprised by the level of debate within Ecademy recently on the issue raised by the interviews Thomas Power, Andy Coote and I gave to the BBC, which appeared under the headline “Meet the digital biographer“.

I thought it worth putting some thoughts down, and to invite debate, as the sound and fury following the article has often been led by blogs which are not simply saying “here’s something worth debating”, and so skewing things. So here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth - or rather, David Petherick’s keyboard. Via wifi through the kind auspices of the Hotel Mar i Vent, Banyalbufar, Serra de Tramuntana, Mallorca.

One ambiguity which arose from the editing of the responses in the story and which needs to be clarified is that I may write blogs for others, but I don’t manage messages for anyone else. That fact has been stated a few times, but it does not seem to have stopped some people from making the assumption wrongly, and repeatedly, that I read and reply to messages on behalf of Thomas Power. I do not. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? “Thomas Power does not write his own emails” shock horror probe… tabloid blogging with a gonzo flavour.
Read more…

digital biographer, online identity, social media

I am now officially the Digital Biographer. According to the BBC. I was interviewed by the BBC’s technology correspondent last week, with the results appearing today. The article focuses on my work for Thomas Power at Ecademy who reveals that I am the “digital biographer” who helps to manage his online presence.

I am glad I managed to embed the phrase “digital biographer” in the mind of the interviewer, and delighted it made its way into the headline. It does sound a little more literary and glamorous than ‘blog butler’ or ‘cyberspace concierge’ I think!

>> Read the full article at the BBC Web Site

digital biographer, online identity, social media