February 09, 2007

Writing the Personal, Writing Personally, And Who Are You Online?

Toby's got a cool discussion going on about the ins and outs of sharing the personal on a professionally-geared blog, and vice versa. We're continuing it tomorrow at SoCon.

Questions -- Can you write 'personally' without sharing details from your personal life? Can a professional blog be personal and professional too and still be 'weighty' enough to matter?

What are the risks of integraing or separating your "selve(s)" online. And what about other social spaces--profiles on myspace, orkut, friendster, facebook; professional connections on linkedin, 'personalities' on second life; photos on flickr; videos, podcasts and everything else Media 2.0? Are we becoming more dissociated or more integrated?

How much of you are you willing to share, how personal are you willing to get, and at what cost?

And what about gender -- are women willing to go where guys fear to tread in the personal department? Is it true that male bloggers tend to separate their professional writing from their more personal posts (men who come to mind: mike arrington's "techcrunch" vs "crunchnotes"; stowe boyd's /message vs ambivalence; and scoble's -- oh wait, I guess scoble blogs like a girl).

:-0

eh? eh?