Whether explicitly stated or not, this is precisely what I see many folks advocating for with our students and educators alike. Telling kids to be careful and thoughtful in what they share is important. Telling them to be calculating and strategic is dangerous. It might be a good thing to consider if you’re selling soap but not if you’re a human being. I see people applying these principles being applied to the way they interact online. The things they share are strategic. They share content and ideas they know will get a lot of views/likes/retweets rather than things that are simply interesting to them. They are careful to maintain the desired reputation of their brand. The schedule their posts and content to get the most traffic and interaction. None of these things are inherently bad but when this criteria drives you, I think you’ve crossed the line from human to brand.

Source: If I Ever Think of Myself as a Brand, Slap Me | Ideas and Thoughts

Love this post from Dean Sharski, I think this is how I’ve subconsciously chosen to pay attention to folk. The more machine like they are the less likely I am to pay attention.

Hence my recent tweet:

@missmcintyre15 thanks for the follow, be warned I don’t just tweet education, some gifs photos and other nonsenses mixed in 🙂

— john johnston (@johnjohnston) November 16, 2015

I don’t particularly want to have professional twitter account. I do think about what I share and I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything that would scare the horses, but a fair proportion of my online life is nonsense. Some of this eventually feeds into my life as an educator but some might appear quite strange sometimes. I tend to post different things different places, this blog steers clear of ds106 related things, gifs go to tumblr but everything ends up on twitter in a messy stream.

Featured image: Tiger Brand on Flickr  No known copyright restrictions.