PhD student bloggers were warned last year by Ivan Tribble (writing under a pseudonym in the Chronicle of Higher Education) that blogs with one’s real name attached might pose a threat to one’s search for a tenure-track teaching job. The article was controversial. Some respondents on the Chronicle’s forums agreed, while others objected on the basis that having a blog could enhance one’s professional persona. The article’s author trotted out many examples of “academic” bloggers who exposed aspects of their lives that job search committees would find disturbing. Still other readers objected (pointlessly, you have to admit) to the very idea that potential employers might google applicants. Others felt that most people who wrote anything but 100% professional blogs had already realized they should only write to an anonymous blog. (Of course, Tribble, who himself hid under a pseudonym, made it clear that no blogs were good blogs as far as he–as a search committee member–was concerned.)
Then The New York Times addressed the phenomena of employee bloggers a few weeks back. And now, it has turned its sights to other embarrassing materials students leave scattered about online. Apparently, students post all kinds of embarrassing things on myspace.com, Friendster, and Facebook, not to mention personal blogs. It’s a reminder that we need, somehow, somewhere, to address students about these kinds of issues. I’ve always tried to do my little bit to support careers services by mentioning to students in my classes that they might want to have a professional email address to use with professors, and those who hire interns and employees, and frankly, anyone involved in one’s education or work career. It is not always readily apparent to students that “hotgirl357@hotmail” or even “RoyalsFan69@yahoo” is maybe not the best email to use in professional settings: they’re memorable, sure, but for the wrong reasons. Being a Royals fan is probably not going to lose students any interviews, but don’t they want email-ees to know the name of the person the message is coming from? When students are reminded of these issues, they usually get it.
But there’s more than embarrassing email addresses at stake. We should be encouraging students early and often to think about what they’re putting out there with their names attached. As this University of Illinois student who was looking for a job (who was cited in the Times article “For Some, Online Persona Undermines Resume”) discovered too late, students should consider who might be reading:
At Facebook, a popular social networking site, the executive found the candidate’s Web page with this description of his interests: “smokin’ blunts” (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex, all described in vivid slang.
It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done.
“A lot of it makes me think, what kind of judgment does this person have?” said the company’s president, Brad Karsh. “Why are you allowing this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semipublicly?”
If they want to post less-than-professional descriptions of themselves on Facebook, myspace, or otherwise, students should think about the usefulness of pseudonyms.
They’re good enough for Ivan Tribble at the Chronicle, after all.
That’s the no-brainer, right? Don’t attach your name to anything you don’t want your name attached to. But the issue becomes murkier–and this is where Ivan Tribble invited all kinds of argument–when what students or employees or academics are putting online is more-or-less professional. At that point, is Tribble right? Is blogging still a no-no? What rules should we follow when using our names online? Assuming we’re sharing our views on higher-level issues than smokin’ blunts, and we’re not dragging anyone’s name through the mud, at what point does any online writing cross the line to become too personal? At what point do we expose something we should not?
I dsitributed “For Some, Online Persona Undermines Resume” to the graduate students and some undergaduate students first thing this morning.
I should have also reminded them of Drogan’s Third Law: “Never put things in an e-mail you would not like to hear read in court.”
I’ve googled myself to find out what’s out there about me. One time I discovered a picture of me that I didn’t know had even been taken. Googling yourself is less an exercise in vanity and more an exercise in awareness.
Now to my point. How does this issue raised by Kate suggest we change the way we teach communication? I’m taking this issue up in a note — “Another Look at Communication Effectiveness” — that has been provoked by this year’s symposium. And I note that early in July preliminary planning for next year’s symposium will be taking place. I hope we also take up the matter of “Communications and the Internet” at this time.
The internet allows for a strange persistence of memory and easy access to that memory. The internet allows (encourages? requires?) new means and methods of communication. Sherry Turkle, in a September 2003 HBR article titled “Technology and Human Vulnerability” makes the point and raises a question: “We knowthat technology changes our lives — but could it be changing our selves as well?”
So, is communications as we have know, love, and practice it be fundamentally changing?
Great questions, James…