The Web's Limitations (or The Cloud is Not All That It's Cracked Up to Be)

Our email has been web based for years, we can watch TV on Hulu, stream movies and entertainment through Netflix to our TVs, use Soundcloud, Live.fm, and Pandora for music anywhere, and have satellite radio beamed into our cars or phones.  There's even Dropbox which acts as our own personal servers (at 2gb for free, or 50gb for $99/yr) that works with multiple devices.  It seems as though we have access to anything at anytime.  Although, I am going to say it here, we really don't.

I am actually writing this post, as the internet in my apartment in Brooklyn, NY is for whatever reason - just not working.  I've done what we all do - unplug, replug, wait for all the blinking lights - run back to the laptop to check, and start the process over if there's no luck, but maybe giving it a few more minutes of downtime.  While I wait for the internet gods to be pleased with me again, I've had time to formulate an opinion I've been working on since I was in India in January - and that is - "The Cloud" is not all it's cracked up to be.  

In January I was on vacation in India with my best friend, and admittedly we're both wildly addicted to our iPhones.  However we had no data plan, and our hotels for 14 out of 15 days did not even offer wifi - which was nice. The one day we stayed at a Marriott we both thought nothing about paying $16 each to have access to it for 24 hours.  But it was amazing how not having instant access to the internet kind of rendered us useless.  Without Google maps we relied on a guidebook, without email we had to print hostel reservations/train tickets - or even go to a travel agent, and without app suggestions, we had to ask around for the best food in these little Indian towns.  Don't get me wrong, the challenge and fun of it all is 100% the reason I travel outside of the country as often as I can, but I hadn't realized how dependent on instant internet access I had become.

Fast forward to being in America though, the second the internet goes out, I am 100% screwed.

All of my docs are on google docs.   Can't see 'em.
All of my entertainment is on Hulu.  Can't watch it.
All of my friends are on Facebook.  Can't stalk them.
All of my friends are on Twitter.  Can't talk to them.
All of my work is in my email in Gmail.  Can't do anything.
All of my music is on Pandora.  Can't listen to it.  (Well, for me personally this one's a lie - everything's in iTunes, but still - if I was having a party, I like the Pandora stations)

For some of these things I'm relying on my iPhone for a connection to the outside world.  And let's face it - if we're relying on AT&T's 3G network in New York City - we're screwed.

While you can't say "The dog ate my homework!" any longer, you certainly can say, "Ohhh sorry, my internet connection at home went out!"

Before this forced down time, I was just tonight looking into storage ability on The Cloud to put my terabyte worth of photos, movies, tv, and paperwork on it to have access from any device.  By crowdsourcing Twitter, I received a whole bunch of answers, and the best one so far looks to be a company called Sugarsync.  Although buying 500gb for $400 a year seems ludicrous when I can buy a Terabyte external harddrive that would fit in my pocket for around $100 one time.  The only problem is that it couldn't plug into a iPhone or iPad.

I was THIS close to actually pulling the trigger on it (they offer a 30 day free trial) when this internet embargo happened.  And I realized, if I were to go completely to the cloud - if I lost access to the internet, I would have no way to do absolutely anything. Then I thought back to India and all the travel I do, and how much I still rely on accessing a harddrive of some kind.

The United States is just not there yet with its internet capabilities, and currently ranks 18th in countries with the fastest speeds.  I have plenty of friends and family still on dialup in rural areas, and there a number of places where I just don't have access to it.  Our internet infrastructure is not competitive enough, nor up to the standard of this power user.

And as I'm finishing this post up,  I am still - without internet, which happens at least 3-4x per week. 


The Facebook Dual Personality

Forgive me internet, for I have sinned.  It has been over a month since my last posting.  I have traveled to India on vacation and unplugged, I have started a new job in NYC, and I have been apartment searching.  All of these topics and more will be blogged about in the near future but there is a topic so pressing it had to come first, and it could not wait.

We talk an awful lot about privacy.  As professionals we discuss how what we post and where can be seen as representations of ourselves and how hiring managers and coworkers may judge us.  As a community manager I must go one step past that and operate official pages and platforms on behalf of a company.   The responsibility in that is a public one that I can't afford to mess up with an off color post or an inappropriate picture.   So I behave.  

I lock up my personal Facebook profile so it can't be found by doing a search.  I close it off to non-friends.  I only accept the friend requests of those I know or have built a decent online relationship with professionally.   I make sure not to post negative things about those I know or about a bad day at work.  

Is it a matter of privacy, or a matter of conflicting usage?

I joined facebook in May 2004.  I was a 21 year old graduate of Syracuse University that was about to take a job working in New York City for the hottest musicians in the world at the world's foremost entertainment agency.  To say that I took a lot of stupid pictures in my early 20s is an understatement. 

However, over the last 7 years, I have created a community on Facebook that's my very own.  It's a strong network of in real life friends and family that do what friends and family do, they post a lot of inside jokes.  They post a lot of angry things about sports and the schools/teams that our favorites play against.  They post a few off color remarks that I find funny because I know who they are, and how they mean it.  We all blow off steam.  We post about touchy subjects like politics and religion and debates happen frequently.  They post swear words and risky video clips and random cartoons.   Even now in my late 20s we still go out and drink and take dumb pictures and post them on Facebook so we can all make our hilariously immature comments.  

How do you censor personal community? 

I could hide my pictures and videos from others.  I could close my wall to comments.  I could delete posts that aren't the most professional.  But then where does that leave me?   I'm now the moderator of my own life. I'm policing a page I use for fun, and would have then taken all the fun out of it for myself.

Recently I became the admin on a Fan Page.  The page is owned and operated by a team, and I am there to act as myself.  I use my personal profile to answer questions as the community manager, and not hide behind the logo.  Total transperancy - which to me makes perfect sense.  As a customer I would always like to know the name and face of the person that's talking to me or helping me.  

However, in order for this to work on Facebook this now means Facebook is no longer my little bubble that I've curated over the years for myself.  It now opens up the possibility of people in that community friending me and leaving me with the dilemma of blurring the work/life boundary.   I love my job, but do I want to take it home with me?


I've been struggling with this thought lately.  I'm a community manager.  I'm out to build relationships on behalf of the company that I am technically the brand ambassador for.  I'm excited to do so, but does that mean I have to open my entire life?  

The easiest answer that I've come up with lately is to have two separate profiles on Facebook.   A personal profile and a professional profile.  

Having a clean slate on the professional profile allows me to separate life and work. It also makes me worry less that my friends will post something that would reflect poorly on me.   It allows me to add members of my work community as my friends on Facebook without revealing too much.  It also allows me to focus solely on that content that maybe they might be more interested in.  

With my new professional profile on Facebook I will still be me.  Add a few pictures from vacations.  I'll still "Like" things and post it to my profile.   I'll add friends as the time goes on and that will include community members.   It may be a little more work to manage two pages,  but then at least I'll still have my own personal space as the average everyday Facebook user.

What do you think?  How do you manage the Facebook duality if you're in charge of Fan Pages and tasked with marketing or community management?  

Oh, The Things You'll Leave Behind

This post is part of a blog series on Brazen being sponsored by Entrustet.  They asked Brazen members to answer the question:  What do you want your legacy to be? 


I plan on living forever, and so far, so good. 
 
That line was always one of my favorites and I have no idea where I heard it or who said it first, it could have even been me, who knows (if you do know, speak up).  It's true though - the idea of living forever, being immortal - it's the stuff that movies and books are made of.  However, as much as we all like to pretend we're infallible, one of these days our stories do come to an end.  The interesting thing is that our digital footprint will live on long after we do, and that's not really something previous generations have had to think about.  So when it comes down to it, what do you want your legacy to be?

Everything we do nowadays from tweets to blog posts is said to remain on the internet forever.  If we're intelligent and thought provoking some of our material will last longer than others.  If we've been fortunate to go viral with a video or some other kind of media, there's potential for that to continue on forever and ever.  Hopefully it educates, or makes someone laugh.  If it doesn't, and it's negative, that's something you'll have to take into account when thinking about your legacy.   

What Does the Current View of Yourself Look Like?

Obviously your legacy means nothing if the whole version of your current self isn't at its online best.  Take a second to set up Google Alerts for your name every day so you can see where you exist currently on the internet.   Modifying your footprint daily will help you to demonstrate to the public the image of yourself you want portrayed.   

If you have a fairly common name, and want to distinguish your good work from those other bums who shares your name,  I wholeheartedly recommend utilizing a service like Brand Yourself. It's not only good for when you want to job search, but it can help you to cultivate the legacy you're leaving behind in your wake.  Identify the pattern of what you have already put online.


How Do You Want to be Remembered?

Once your modern self is being promoted in the best way, now you can start to think about what your legacy will be.  What do you want left behind about yourself?   I know that everything in my whole life exists on my external hard drive as far as all of my memories from college, living in New York, and living abroad.  I also know that my email account will be an accurate portrayal of my life, and that I have more than one.  Let's not even think about all of your financial dealings and important paperwork.   Create a list of websites and their logins/passwords and give it to the person who is in charge of your life should something happen to you.  My mother is my designated Power of Attorney so I keep this updated and send her a reviewed form every so often.   Also put on there which online sites you may want deleted

You Can't Take it With You

 We live in an age where having a Will probably doesn't mean much.  I don't have many material items to leave behind for family members to fight over, and at the time of this writing I have not yet become a millionaire (there's still time).  My entire legacy will be online and the things I have done and written.  If by chance I am being searched for in the distant future, I hope that the pictures and videos and speaking engagements all demonstrate that I enjoyed life and wanted to help those around me.  I also hope that my start up company Eat Your Serial is wildly successful and that it continues long after I'm around by entertaining the masses and finding great new authors for generations to come.  Time will tell.

Some profiles take care of your legacy.  Facebook "memorializes" your page by closing log in attempts, making your wall available for friends and family members to post if they wish, and by taking your name out of public search results.   Whatever you had on your profile as your favorite music, or your inspirational quotes will stay there forever.  

So at this current moment in life - What do you think your legacy will be?  And more importantly - what do you want it to be?