All The World Is A Stage

For the past nine years, I've been involved with the local storm spotter training. Continuing evidence of the digital era, four guys show up to record the Tulsa NWS training session. They were uber-weather digi geeks, quite proud of how they didn't need any of that old-school ham radio stuff. I suspect they MP3'd up the event along with their video.

Usually, these training sessions are somewhat embargoed, and contain some copyright material. But, it was in a public space and at a public university, so there was no hesitation in recording and potentially putting it on-line.

OK, this isn't like Justin.TV hijacking content. It is more of a wake-up for anyone in a public forum -- you should expect that you are going to be recorded.

This is the end of "off the record." The end of background briefing. And, for transparency, I can't say that's a bad thing.

However, don't let this illustration give anyone the feeling that life is more transparent. In fact, I believe as we become accustomed to "new media" we will become more -- and better quality -- performers.

The digital natives are quick to remind us old folk that the beauty of SNW is the ability to construct your public personality. As one said, a current college student has three distinct digital profiles -- resume avitars -- Facebook for friends, MySpace to advertise themselves, Linkdin to get a job. While these profiles may be at great odds, they exist as extentions of the reality that is the person who created them.

Welcome to the big show.