Identity Crisis
It finally happened to me. My Twitter identity caught up with me and my professional life.
As part of my day job, I was asked to write a post for my company’s website. And, within the community of professionals in my field, the post got some traction and rapidly appeared on Twitter. Of course it wasn’t long before someone figured out my Twitter username, since it was my real name and started following me. Within hours, everyone from my boss’ boss’ boss to influential industry figures were following me, and presumably weren’t interested in my great posts about spare ribs and pulled pork.
So I faced the dilemma … do I keep a single Twitter account for personal and work use, or should I create a second online persona and divide my personal from my professional life? I follow people who have done it both ways. In some ways, it’s kind of nice to get a glimpse into the private life of someone you follow for professional reasons. But there’s a difference between someone following me for work getting a glimpse into my affinity for music, and someone expecting an occasional opinion on industry events but getting 8 tweets a month about bar-b-que and me hacking my cellphone.
So I ultimately ended up creating a new Twitter user name for my own personal use, and I will be transitioning my original name to my professional persona. The change has already been made on this site — my new “Mass_BBQ” name is linked to the Twitter display in the sidebar.
The good news is that many people are in this same situation. So most Twitter clients, including TweetDeck and PocketTweet which I use, can display and post to multiple accounts at once. So keep an eye for my posts on a new account.
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I'm old enough to have been around the internet since the beginning -- starting with private BBS systems which I accessed via a Hayes 300 baud modem and then moving on to a genuine CompuServe account! I have a degree in Environmental Science and have had a varied career starting in a laboratory, followed by 10 years in Service & Operations for a large networking equipment manufacturer, and now in a Product Management role for an innovative healthcare organization. I started making web pages on Angelfire and other free services, and can remember when NetZero actually provided Internet access for free (hence the zero in the name). Among other things, I build my own PCs and run my own Linux servers at home for fun.
Musings on personal and professional Twitter ID’s: http://robsrants.havasy.net/2010/01/iden...
Wise move. Your personal life should stay personal. You can never be sure when you’re boss’ boss’ boss will object to something you post that’s unrelated to work.