Winter Solstice

Hey, faithful readers. I'm sorry not to have kept up with blog series. I hope to finish it perhaps with a little less over-the-top sarcasm. I just underwent a small identity crisis about this blog, what I'm using it for, my "tone" and its content.

This has happened periodically over the 3 years I've kept Spiral Scratch but more frequently now that I have other people reading it. It was much simpler to keep my focus when I had no audience although I greatly appreciate the positive feedback I've received about the content & my writing.

It's just that when you're only writing for yourself, anything goes. You can indulge any whim, not care about how you are being perceived, jump from intimate & personal to grand statements about the world. It's an online journal for whatever thoughts you want to express.

When you are conscious that others read your content (and it doesn't matter whether you have 1 subscriber or 10,000), most people have a bit more hesitation about what they put out there because no matter how kindly they might be, people are passing judgment on you & your writing...was it clever? was it insightful? was it boring? was it funny? was it groan-worthy? Readers begin to form a mental image of who you are and what you care most about.

This thought process happens unconsciously, in the few minutes it takes to scan over a blog entry. Most bloggers claim to be just being themselves but don't believe it. The awareness of people reading what you write changes the way you write. That fact doesn't mean that writers necessarily censor themselves but only the most stubborn of them can not be influenced by the desire to please their readers, even if that means being cantankerous, it's still about meeting other people's expectations of you.

As a person with literary stage fright, I'm not immune to this pull whatsoever! I've dropped my more idiosyncratic posts about my personal life and focused on discussing social networks, especially Twitter. But I've resisted a pressure I feel to adopt a "professional voice" because my blog was never intended to be a vehicle for business or my career but a place where I could talk about experiences and ideas.

The current series about ways to become popular on Twitter was intended to highlight trends I've noticed among the top 1000 most followed people on Twitter that are in contrast to how people normally perceive one gets to be popular. So, I lifted the sales tone of get more followers spammers & tried to make my points in a humorous way (I hope!). But, unfortunately, not everyone got that I was being satirical and not actually giving advice by pointing out some of the more ridiculous aspects of Twitter popularity. I began to question whether I had adopted the best method to get my points across.

Those doubts just stopped me in my tracks even though I had actually mapped out the last segments of the series. I'd like to share these insights but am unsure if I'll just continue in the comic mode or just make the points more directly. It's unsettled but I'd like to finish it.

Since I'd received a couple inquiries about the blog, I just wanted to post this update. I hope everyone is enjoying the remainder of this holiday season, isn't feeling too much end-of-the-year stress, and can enjoy the company of offline and online friends & family. Happy New Year to you all!

What shall I be today?

I started this blog 3 years ago when I was in the middle of a 6 year long bout of chronic insomnia. I was having trouble with my dissertation and, consequently, had nights in which I never fell asleep. At all. I'd lie awake in bed, thinking, and get up once I saw light in the sky.

I'd usually force myself to stay awake and go to bed early but sometimes, at least once a month, I'd go two days/nights without sleep. I did my share of chemical experimentation when I was in college but nothing can compare with going without sleep for 40 or 50 hours. You enter a different stage of consciousness, between wakefulness and unconsciousness. I used to put away my car keys so I'd stay off the road...I think sleepy drivers are a bigger cause of accidents than drunk drivers.

So, I started this blog as a creative outlet, a place where I could put out random thoughts and ideas, sort out things in my mind. And it was mine alone, I think I wrote on and off for a couple of years before I had anyone read my blog and post a comment. I was frankly shocked. I know the Internet is about the least private medium that exists but I was lulled into thinking of this blog as a personal diary.

Against the common wisdom that bloggers want bigger & bigger audiences, I haven't known how to handle having people read my blog, commenting on my entries. In one sense, it is extremely flattering and I'm grateful for the interest and people taking time to read but most people act differently when they know they have an audience. Before, no one knew who I was so I was free to say whatever I wanted because no one was listening (that I knew about!).

Since Twitter, all that has changed. I'm engaged in conversation with a lot more people online than I ever thought imaginable...and because I wanted to fill out the Twitter bio and there is a website link, I linked to this blog. In a sense, that was inviting, maybe even advertising, for readers.

So I've been trying to sort out in my mind what this blog should be...should I continue with the personal stuff that is more intimate and of limited interest? Or should I focus my writing on a topic like Twitter or social media and try to make an intellectual contribution, linking to other blogs and participating in a larger discussion?

The common approach now in social media is to blend ones personal and professional lives together but this goes against all of my training as an academic. I don't think that people interested in my social critiques want to hear me complain about my cat.

But I could be wrong! Let the experimentation continue!

Identifying yourself

I've been working on a blog entry about visibility/invisibility which I hope to post soon but I thought I'd take a second and acknowledge the photo that I now have posted on my blog. I've tried to separate my blogging/Twitter life from my professional life and so that has meant no last name & no pictures of me. I'm on the job market & I didn't want my middle of the night musings or Tweets to be the first thing that popped during an employer Google search on my name.

But I was prompted to post a picture on learning that I'm one of the hundreds nominated for the Hottest Blogger Calendar contest. I can tell you it was quite a relief after learning this to go to the website & find that I didn't have 0 votes (okay, it's 3!). I'm almost at the bottom of the list under "Liz (Spiral Scratch)".

It's not that I'm vain but I do have a competitive streak in me. I won't win this contest, there are women bloggers with huge readerships & loyal fans but I just don't want to come in dead last!

As far as I know, this is a legit popularity contest and it doesn't require that the female winners look like Gisele Budchen. The calendar will probably feature women & men (there's a men's poll, too!) hunched over laptops, not laying out on tropical beaches but we won't know until it's unveiled in November.

So, I'm not shilling for votes, it's a silly contest, but since I am entered, I thought I'd post a photo & at least acknowledge that it is going on. Personally, I'm just happy not to be at the bottom of the list and any placement in the middle of the entries will be a boost to my superficial ego!

The fever has passed, now back to real life

I've returned from the seas of Olympic mania back into the calm woods of New Jersey. Since the political tickets are 3/4 set, I'm not absorbed by the upcoming two weeks of conventions and hope to pour more time into Spiral Scratch.

I blame the neglect on the seductive power of live broadcasting of obscure sporting events. Hell, I even watched the canoe races, a decision that I'm questioning now since I have to find a new job and I have a backlog of revisions to do. I caught the fever but it ran its course...until 2012.

Persona Blogging: Art or Artifice?

This entry arises out of a session I went to on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008 at Social Media Camp NYC which was held at the Sun Microsystems offices in Manhattan. To give some background for those who are unfamiliar with it, Social Media Camp is a form of Bar Camp. Bar Camp, according to its wiki is

an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.

This looks like the standard definition for any professional gathering but the Bar Camp philosophy is to be spontaneous and participatory. While some campers might submit an idea for a session ahead of time, at a Bar Camp large pieces of paper are put on the walls with timelines for each breakout room so people can pencil in sessions they'd like to offer which can either be formal (Powerpoint talks) or informal (putting forth an idea for discussion). When they first started in 2005, Bar Camps focused solely on technology issues but form has been expanded to other areas, in this case, social media.

A lot could be said about the success or failure of this camp but I'd just like to talk about one half hour session that was offered on "Persona Blogging". The presenter, a 25 year old woman I'll call "R", runs 10 different blogs in which she presents herself as different people, ranging from a young woman much like herself to a middle-aged housewife in New Jersey to a gay clothing designer in Miami. She is given a demographic profile by her employer of their target audience and she assumes that identity when she writes and interacts with blog readers. One of her employers actually initiated this Social Media Camp session and asked her to lead it because he was interested in having a discussion about the ethics of doing persona blogging.

R barely got out an explanation of what she did for a living when she was faced with a barrage of questions, most of them critical or even hostile. My own question stated that I could understand her portraying a semi-fictional character (like Betty Crocker or Dear Abby) but I think she gets in dangerous territory when she starts creating relationships with readers under a false identity. People, women & men, can get emotionally invested in online relationships especially when the blogger publicly acknowledges them in some way. It can easily happen!

What was more interesting though than my personal opinion was the reaction the persenter received from the crowd. It was an incredibly heated, animated discussion but it wasn't really a discussion because participants just fired questions at R and each other without any real dialog occurring. All order was lost and the session devolved into mini-conversations occurring at tables or other areas of the room.

Clearly, she had touched a nerve which I believe is the issue of trust and authenticity in online relationships. R presented herself as someone who plays a role online and I think many in attendance were outraged because it raises the possibility that their own online relationships could be based on nothing but fabrications. A deceitful person can get away with pretending they are anyone online until some overly diligent person "outs" them.

In order to extend our social networks (whether personally or professionally) we have to trust that the people we meet online are who they say they are. Several audience members asserted that nowadays, people are aware that users online aren't necessarily being honest but I doubt that many individuals could be active networkers while maintaining a consistent attitude of skepticism towards everyone they encounter. You would basically not admit anyone to your Facebook page or block on Twitter anyone you didn't personally know which defeats the purpose of online social networking which is to reach beyond the physical boundaries of day-to-day work, family, friends & neighborhood social circles.

Having someone intentionally misrepresenting themselves on a blog for commercial purposes is different than a simple troll or bot because over a series of blog posts, the readers feel like they get to know this person. Faced with the fact that this relationship could be phony can cause one to question the integrity of other relationships or figures online which puts a cloud over the entire social experience.

R admitted that what she was really doing was a form of acting but we know that actors aren't their characters. Performance art is subversive because in some pieces one is not sure if the person is a performer or actually the character they are portraying. And this uncertainty makes most people uneasy because it introduces a great deal of ambiguity when we depend on being able to rely on our senses & experiences to differentiate what is real from what is false. We know that advertising is trying to sell us something but we also know an ad when we see it or we hope to be able to distinguish staged advertising from genuine personal interaction.

R's introduction of a "simple" question, "What do you think about the ethics of 'persona blogging'?" was engaging because it hit at the heart of the participants' field of interest, social media. Audience skepticism in online networks and advertising would likely doom any effort made by a marketing or media company. A company wants its audience to trust that it is who it says it is and will do what it says it will do or it will probably not succeed. R pointed at how vulnerable this trust when there is a third party who plays by different rules and I think this is what set the audience off.

While I completely disagree with the deceit of persona blogging, I must say that I had a really great 10 minute conversation with R and her employer after the presentation. I think they are playing with fire (potential backlash if R is outed) but I applaud their bravery for raising the question and facing the heat from the audience. Ethical issues always touch a nerve and are rarely easy to answer. That's also what makes them essential topics of discussion.

When being wrong feels right

This week I found myself at an Advanced Blogging Workshop run by New York City Webgrrls, a group of women working in technology who network and run classes like this. In this workshop I discovered that everything about my blog is "wrong", from using the Blogger platform to my page layout, from the erratic nature of my posts to my content which is too personal and not professional enough.

I was told that "the blogging community does not respect anonymous bloggers" which is a pretty amazing claim considering the millions of blogs that exist...did the Worldwide Bloggers Association hold a meeting and not tell me about it? I never got a chance to vote!

My initial reaction is to think, if being right is what everyone else is doing, I want to be wrong! When I conveyed these sentiments in the workshop, that being "different" could attract readers, I was told that Internet users make judgments about whether they want to read a blog in 1/20 of a second and that if I didn't have the right pieces in their proper places saying appropriate things, these valued potential readers would turn tail & run and never, ever, EVER come back. Whoosh! Millions of missed opportunities!

I don't know about you, valued readers, but this is not how I read blogs. I do wander into some blogs that are on a subject matter that is not of interest to me and leave...for example, I'm not a computer scientist and I don't have a baby so if I go on to sites that have these as their primary material, I don't stay.

But through Twitter, I am exposed to literally hundreds of blog links every day and, unfortunately for my academic work, I follow quite a few of them back to their source. It doesn't matter whether it is a blog with tips for success or a blog that describes a party someone went to, if it looks mildly interesting, I'll give it five minutes of my time and even scan through older posts. I usually notice that some layouts are more inviting than others but I read some blogs that almost qualify as ugly! But content rules!

Because I'm basically a humanist and I follow a lot of people on Twitter who work in marketing & PR, I often find myself at odds with some of the consumer/corporate ideology in the material I come across. Unless the person is offensive or dismissive, this doesn't stop me from revisiting this blog if there is another entry posted that sounds interesting. Once again, content rules over presentation, at least in my world.

So, I apologize if having the menu on the right side rather than the left side forces the reader to have to shift their glance from one side of the page to the other but you know what? I think you guys can figure it out!

I am actually going to consider some of the suggestions that were made to me because I don't want to be closed-minded to criticism. But they will be considered each on their own merits. If being popular means looking like everyone else, I'll stick with my frizzy hair and oddly-shaped toes. I mean, if it can't be personal, why even have a blog?

Those who don't create, critique those who do

I've committed one of the cardinal sins of blogging: it's been weeks since I've written an entry. This has happened for a number of reasons but primarily due to my addiction to Twitter.

I've found this microblogging format and the people I've been introduced to incredibly compelling. Twitter is everything that academia and a dissertation is not: it is concise instead of wordy, it is flirty instead of measured, it is snarky instead of considered, it is timely instead of enduring, and it is fast instead of labored.

There is in both academia and the Twitter universe a great deal of self-promotion but where Twitter blares out self-referential Tweets in stark, bright colors, scholars indirectly tout themselves in lengthy and subdued footnotes. Twitter is bold, snappy and instantaneous and in academia, even after death, an author's work is ceaselessly critiqued for its worthiness and its potential contribution to the field. Bogged down in yet more dissertation rewrites, I was an easy mark to fall prey to Twitter's seductive urgency, its false sense of intimacy and its immediacy.

But since every quality that are Tweets, or messages, are aspects of writing frowned upon in my discipline, I've been a stranger in a strange land, out of my element. The people I've encountered online have been, by and large, kind and open to me but, to use another cliche, I'm a round peg in a square hole. I don't fit and many of my snarky remarks were observations of the worlds of the participants (primarily technology and marketing) that I found incredibly peculiar. I found and still find it difficult to hold my tongue when people are behaving in what seems to me to be a ludicrous manner. If I was physically present, I would roll my eyes and give a "what is WITH these people" shake of my head but since I was in the world of Twitter, I would fire off a random pet peeve of those I was "following" or remark sarcastically in a way that I thought resembled intelligence.

I was already to write another Tweet about how no one in the outside world really cares about political in-fighting in the world of technology when I got a terrible headache. Eventually, this led me to wonder, was I creating anything of value? Was I contributing to the problem instead of trying to understand the world and myself a little better?


Which, predictably, led me back to my neglected blog. I hope to take the energy I got from writing Tweets and channel it towards the creation of something more lasting and ephemeral than 140 character messages. I'm not aiming for profundity, I'd just like to contribute something relevant to the discussion going on online about how advances in technology and communication are changing the way we understand ourselves and the way we behave.

I know I won't be promoting myself on Twitter, that is a no-no that is just too ingrained in me over years of graduate school programming. But I can say with certainty that I'll probably lapse into talking about myself and my cat! That's a promise.

To be me or not to be me....

I haven't been blogging much recently because I have spent enormous amounts of time (for me, at least) reading other people's blogs and connecting with people via social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). So far, it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience albeit rather time-consuming. I haven't encountered any creeps or stalkers or people with poisonous negativity. In general, folks have been friendly and helpful which is remarkable to me because they don't know a single thing about me.

Among the many wonderful links that have been shared have been several analyses of blogs, what makes a good blog, how to get more readers for your blog, how to make your blog "better", etc. Reading this all at one sitting was, I have to say, overwhelming. I realized that I had no conception of "who my audience was". I guess I am writing for myself but I read other people's personal blogs so, who knows?, maybe there are people interested in reading about my problems finding a housemate or having writer's block or looking for inspiration and finding it in unexpected places.

I was feeling a LOT of pressure (by whom? I haven't a clue) to have this blog provide something meaningful, to make it more "helpful" to the reader and less like an episode of Seinfeld (without the punchlines). Less anecdotal and more substance.

Yet, I created this blog as a place to come and write about the stuff of life or, at least, my life however narrow that is. My dissertation fills up most of my life and has for the past few years and it is where I try to make meaningful statements and, as they say, "contribute to the literature." Although I might talk about my cat being sick (which I think was completely misdiagnosed), this blog was intended to be a place for interior thoughts, silly observations, great quotes, lingering frustrations, maybe a nice picture or two or even a video clip. It was not meant to be WORK, another job.

When I start thinking, "I need to write another blog entry", it becomes an unpaid job and I tend to write less. When I can share things I delight in or I find maddening, then it becomes a pleasure.

As the NY Times article about Emily Gould reveals (and the letters it provoked), this smacks of narcissism to a lot of people. Me, me, me. But, right now, I'm my primary resource for ideas along with a lot of wonderful new websites that people have introduced me to over the past three weeks.

I've decided that there is probably another blog in me, someway I can share all of the years I've spent in higher education with other people. But as for Spiral Scratch, that will just continue as a personal journal. I might update the stodgy template some and reduce the numbers of widgets to give it a cleaner look, but the message will remain the same. And for those of you who wander in here for wherever in cyberspace, I hope you will feel at home.

Public face

Any visitors to this blog might have noticed that there are a lot more doodads and widgets cluttering up the page. I'm trying to bring this blog up-to-date by conforming with the more standard layout features which makes for a crowded blog but one that I hope will fit it more into the blogosphere.

Have any opinions? I will take your silence as license to experiment!

Creating, not consuming

I've been trying to get up-to-date on technology issues, specifically those involved with shared media and social networking. But it is just an enormous world out there! I have feeds and bookmarks for about two dozen blogs already so there is no way I can keep up with current developments without spending a couple of hours a day just reading other people's blogs.

Then I become merely a culture consumer instead of a culture creator. It's a little thrilling to be "in the know" and to have a grasp on the current wave of technology (as peripheral as it is to my life) but how does this knowledge help anyone, including myself? If I'm not creating something tangible, putting effort into content creation, then it is just ephemeral info that is immediately out-dated as soon as the next technological development or crisis appears.

I have to put more effort into creative efforts than just reading other people's thoughts, however interesting they might be.

My new mascot:

Bad, BAD blogger

I haven't been blogging much lately...too busy trying to find a housemate and a new job (i.e., life). Best news is that my computer died which was agonizing (I loved my 7 year old laptop) but it forced me to get a new computer and, damn, a lot has changed since 2001. It's got some cool new features (webcam, DVD recorder) but I have almost gone mad trying to correct and "fix" a lot of glitches. Customer support? Hah! I think I know more about this computer at this point than the people who are hired to help me get it to work right.

I hope to return to blogging once I meet some ridiculous deadlines I committed myself to. Or I might come here to procrastinate, we'll see.