The Social You vs The Professional You
The last couple of working days and the rest of this week I’ve been talking with high school students about why we (ISB) have given them a blog to start building their ‘Professional You‘.
When I put it in terms of Facebook is the ‘Social You’…the you with your friends, and the you while hanging out. Then your blog is and should become the ‘Professional You’. The place you mold who you are, what you are interested in, and where you want to go. The you you want colleges and universities to know about, that you want your employers to know about. The you that is preparing for life after school.
I get a lot of head nods when I explain it this way. They also appreciate that the blog is theirs. They have full admin rights, they control it, design it, layout it out, organize it. They are building their professional self…..and they get it. They get how important it is, they get that it’s something they need to be doing, and they’re excited to get started.
Of course the Professional You can and sometimes overlaps with the Social You, and that’s OK. Your goodreads.com account can post both to your blog and to your Facebook account. You can create a Facebook Fan Page to show a more professional you to colleges and universities. I also hope that some of the things you learn in social groups transfers to your professional reflections. There’s a blurry middle where content overlaps and on the extreme left and right you have your Facebook profile and your professional profile.
But that blurry part…that’s the tough part. That’s where decisions have to be made. Where students at the age of 13 need to start making decisions that we never had to make. We never had a professional side at 13….we didn’t need one. But if you are going to have a social side on the Internet then you better also start building your professional side.
We’re starting in 4th grade with student blogging, starting to build their professional you. What we’re hoping is we’ll get ahead of the curve of the Social You. That students understand that when they start a Social You that there’s this other part that people see, read, and respect and that side is just as important, if not more, than the Social You. Making decisions in that blurry area we hope become a bit easier.
Do you have a Social You and a Professional You on the Internet? Where do you draw the line? How are you teaching students to manage both?
School's about Being Social
Do you have a Social You and a Professional You on the Internet? Where do you draw the line?
I wrote a post just a while back: http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/google-buzz-and-george-costanza-worlds-collide/
That looked at how Google Buzz combined my social and professional profiles in a way that I didn’t want it to. The more I think about it the more I realize I can’t have a social and professional me online (or anywhere for that matter) that are very different… I need to be consistent in many ways! But I can have a ‘voice’ in my different networks that is quite different, (a more social one here, a more professional one there, etc.). There are too many opportunities for overlap to draw a definitive line.
How are you teaching students to manage both?
We are starting with Blogs as ‘containers’ for students’ learning portfolios this year from Grades 7-9… we will start with a bootcamp (still working on this) and go from there. Any suggestions you have along the way would be greatly appreciated!
I have both (FB= personal, TF and blog= professional). I find the toughest time to separate them is when I encounter something I am really excited about. I want to tell everyone, both my public audience and my private audience. That is where the spillover occurs. I have learned to temper my enthusiasm by not posting immediately or tweeting rght away in the moment of discovery. It is like the old people’s adage about letting an email sit for a few hours before sending it in the heat of the moment. I love the fact that I can write the post and simply not publish. Holding back on a tweet or blog comment –like this– is a little tougher. As a definite side benefit, letting posts sit always makes my writing better, since I can better excise the unnecessary stuff. As a teacher of writing, I find that a double-dip benefit.
I also have learned that the more roles I play in my life, the tougher the separations/spillovers become. For example, I also serve as a seriously committed volunteer in local government. Do I allow that role to spill over into family/personal space and professional space (and vice versa)? Students need to think about all the roles they now have and may have in the future. Perhaps it helps for them to think of adults they know well and what might happen a message to one constituency were discovered by another. I do not keep “secrets,” but sometimes one group simply does not understand the context of another.
It might be fun for students to envision historic figures cross-pollinating some of the personal relationships we now know they had with some of their professional ones: Churchill? Kennedy? Roosevelt? who else? Could be an interesting research project.
I too have both in that I use FB and blog about my travels. I have two professional blogs – one that reviews children’s books and one that reflects on my classroom experiences BUT I am always aware of the digital footprints that I leave so that even on FB I am careful about posting comments that are professional. I stay clear of controversial subjects and TMI. I teach my students to approach social media in the same way – once on the web, always on the web.
Hi,
My name is Haley Drinkard and I am a junior at the University of South Alabama majoring in elementary education. After visiting your blog, I will summarize and share my thoughts about your post on my blog. I will be posting this summary to my blog on 9/12.
I took a marketing class about a year ago and the whole class was basically getting to know ourselves. You have to know yourself in order to market yourself in a professional manner.
A ‘Professional You’ and a ‘Social You’ have to be consistent. We have to think about our future – job interviews and the people that we will be encountering. You can be searched on the internet and instantly have results. You have to be careful about what you post on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. For example, two people went for a job interview and the first thing the human resources department did was google each of them. Both of their facebook profiles popped up under the search. One of them seemed to be a party animal and portrayed that by posting obscene pictures and using language that was inappropriate. However, the other person did not have any obscene pictures or inappropriate language and was still able to express themselves and communicate with their friends and family in an appropriate manner. The good guy is ahead by a few points before even going into the interview.
If we are posting texts and graphics that we know we would not want potential employees and universities to see, then why are we posting it? You can be social and still be professional. A guy in my EDM 310 class made the comment that we leave an “intellectual trail” on the internet and we do. That is why we should always prepare to be professionals.
Thanks Haley….now the question is how do you…as an educator…get this message across to your students. Yes…you have to be 13 to be on Facebook but half our 5th grade and a 1/3 of our 4th grade are already there. You and I as adults understand this. How do you teach a 4th graders that what they post today is part of their permanent record? I know that’s not what I was thinking about in 4th grade.
Jeff,
I was not thinking in that way when I was in fourth grade either, but students are a lot more up to date when it comes to technology than I was when I was in the fourth grade.
Since children are now using computers, we could teach them how important their permanent record is through the computer. By doing so, they can see just how much information is available on the internet.
Have them research their friends and family through google and see what they come up with. Even have them research themselves. After completing this task, ask them if they found anything out about themselves that they would not want others to see.
By doing this small research project, students will be able to see that EVERYONE can see what they post on the internet. I believe that students are unaware of just how much information is actually on the internet, and I feel that this would be a great way to give them some insight on what SHOULD be posted on facebook, twitter, myspace, blogs, etc.
I believe that blogging in the fourth grade is a wonderful thing. By developing a professional blog, students can compare to their social side (facebook, twitter, myspace), and we, as educators, can teach them how to be consistent in what they post.
I completely agree and think that children should be exposed to the life lesson of the professional side of them and the social side of them. It is a lot harder for someone who has never been taught this to differentiate between the two. I feel that especially in high school when students are preparing to decide their life plans that this is exceptionally important and could be very beneficial to their future.
Jeff … nicely put, thanks for sharing …
Chris
Hi Jeff,
I am a junior at University of South Alabama taking EDM310. We are required to read Teacher’s blogs and comment on them. I have to tell you that your blog was not only informative for me as a student but as a parent as well. I have a daughter in the 5th grade this year and the terms “facebook” and “blogging” are common place language amongst her peers. As a returning adult student who has never blogged or commented on others blogs I am realizing how behind I am. With regards to teaching students to not only have the social blogs but also to work on professional blogs this is great teaching for not only students in high school but for those of us beginning the journey of becoming “professional’s.” Very helpful thanks!
Hello Jeff,
I’m also a student at the University of South Alabama. I think this idea of blogging for the more “professional side” of yourself is a great idea. Today a lot of kids aren’t realizing when they are throwing all of their personal information out there onto facebook that everyone and anyone can see that stuff, not just their friends. I would much rather have a potential employer view my “professional” blog than my personal facebook page. I think it’s a great idea for younger children to think about where they want to go and what they want to become. I think entering goals on a blog could really help students remember what they are striving for in life.
Jeff,
I used this excellent explanation with my high school students on the first day of school last week. However, instead of “the professional you” I used the “student you.” After all, high school students have a hard time imagining time beyond “what’s for dinner?” Modeling good student behavior is in many ways easier than modeling good professional behavior since their professional role models are often poorly behaved celebrities.
Thanks for this post. My 9 and 11 grade students create and manage their own blogs. I love that they find their unique voices as the write about topics they care about. Like you, I try to teach students the importance of creating the proper online image. Thank you for this reminder to talk about the need for students to project themselves in a professional manner.
I post with my real name when posting professionally. I use a pseudonym for personal posting (like my blog, twitter, and g+). Lately, I’ve been giving greater thought to having a more public presence using my real name, but I’m waiting for my school district to open us up to Google+.
I teach middle school, so I haven’t thought about teaching Professional You to the extent that you do, but we do talk about formal and informal writing as it relates to technology. I probably should think harder about starting this talk earlier with my 6th graders.