Congruence and life on the Internet
The more we express parts of our lives on the Internet, the more critical it is for us to be congruent as individuals.
It is increasingly easier to piece together the whole person (or as whole as we can get with the available pieces of that person on the Internet).
The cost of incongruence is higher too as we start to rely on services like LinkedIn and Facebook to build trust with people we may never meet face to face.
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Hi Zern,
Thanks for bringing to light a real sleeping giant for all of us!
We all live multi-faceted lives with careers, family, friends and pastimes. It used to be very easy to keep them separate in a public sense.
Web-based social spaces are becoming very much a part of these once-separate facets, with the sharing of photos with family and friends, connected social networks, connected professional networks and so on.
You are so right about the importance of congruence and of being consistent! So much can be learned and even misinterpreted about who we are by our web presence — our ‘digital footprint’.
Google a person’s name and now more than ever you will find them in both professional and social networks. Astute employers are probably already doing this and making decisions about hiring or promoting based on what they think about your presence on these sites.
My advice is to plan your web presence. Think very carefully about the social spaces you join and how you present yourself there. Most importantly, as Zern points out, be consistent! Be a model of integrity.
Assume any comment, post or link you make anywhere will be seen and acted on by your spouse, your employer, your family or others. If you have congruence within your digital footprint, people will trust that you are as you appear. If not, people will be unsure and your relationships and opportunities may suffer.
Robert Rath – http://www.innovation-mentor.com
Planning is astute. Being is the ultimate aim.
When you are congruent (and this takes time and effort, all part of the growing process) your actions will be congruent.
Here’s another thought – given we all need time to grow; and making mistakes, being incongruent, are part and parcel of growing, is the Internet is a sufficiently forgiving medium over time?
There is apparently a trend amongst young girls in the US at the moment who take great pride in displaying photos of themselves drunk on Facebook and other social sites. Parents and employers are understandably dismayed at this.
For some of these girls, they will reach a point one day in their lives where being drunk in public is no longer congruent with who they are. Should they then still be penalised for this earlier, undestandable loss of congruence?
Is Your Digital Footprint In Order?…
In his recent article, ‘Congruence and life on the Internet’, Zern Liew brings to light a real sleeping giant for all of us, our ‘digital footprint’ and how it represents us in an on-line world.
We all live multi-faceted lives with careers,…
Hey Zern
Like any self-respecting business person I have a Google alert on my name.
I’m amazed at what comes up and how fast.
Some people’s blogs make me feel like I’m sitting in their living room around a fire and I have at times forgotten that my comments will live in Google perpetuity.
Making my website/blog/twitter/facebook/networking/public speaking/training/bookwriting/partygoing/meditating selves all match up is something I’m focusing on more and more.
Having the chutzpah to be authentic all the time is part of it, but online there is the long memory of the internet…
Thanks for the reminder.
You’re welcome Andrew.
Here’s a thought – perhaps congruence is the best defence we have against fake identities (there must be a cooler word for this?) – where a person posts a fake profile of someone else on a social networking site, or uses someone else’s handle in a forum etc.