Case Story: Youneverquiteknowwhoyouare

Summary	It is hard to interpret your own digital identity - it is still just one perspective. Consult your Trusted community.
Group / workshop	Digital Identities	Status	seed
Project details...	Rhizome

Situation

What was the setting in which this case study occurred?

Using Twitter: Away on a writing retreat at the end of a project with colleagues. I was using Twitter Direct Messages (which are private person-to-person messages) to keep in touch with my partner and send back updates on how it was all going. To my horror I let one of the DMs go out into my public time-line. A Tweet that (i) complained about the crap food we were eating and (ii) had a personal expression of love.

Task

What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?

The problem to be solved was I guess a social one (unfortunately there is no delete button for tweets so I didn't have any technical options). There was a distinct feeling of embarrassment - firstly exposing a private space in such a public way - I was completely unsure how it might be interpreted and what it might say about me. And secondly a slight professional embarrassment that I had criticised the food at what was a paid for event.

Actions

What was done to fulfil the task?

To solve the problem I immediately went public, as it were, in the face-2-face setting and told a couple of friends what had happened and asked if they had seen the tweet. They hadn't (which in itself was interesting) but they scrolled back through the time-line to have a look.

Results

What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?

The friends looked. Smiled - joked about it briefly. They then sent some amusing replies to the original Tweet via Twitter. Neither made any comment on the professional embarrassment - except to comment that yes the truth was the food was crap. And one of the friends simply told me that the expression of love in the message just made me seem like a very nice person. The result - the sense of anxiety/embarrassment disappeared immediately - in fact I felt almost pleased I had made the error.

Lessons Learned

What did you learn from the experience?

Asking someone in your trusted community to comment on a problem/mistake/anxiety can be quite a sobering experience. It takes you outside of your own perspective and let's you interpret issues from completely different angles. That said - having a delete button for errant tweets would also have been damn useful :)

Licensing

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.