Friday, July 08, 2011

Random Thought on Feed Names

If the goal is to be transparent and genuine, why do we use names that are clearly handles to represent our "brands" rather than our own names? If we know the disassociation principle is the key to bad, dark behavior on line, why do we encourage it by utilizing labels?

The thought hits me when looking back at the names of some of the more recent followers of my feed. OK, there were some thousand Bill Smiths -- but I'd argue that picked something pretty close to who I am as well as memorable.

When we hire a coach at a school or a dean is named for a college, they don't become DemonCoach or FulbrightDean -- they are still the people who got hired. Seems like we spend a little too much time on the institutions when what people want is to deal with people. Part of this thinking related to questions at convention about what to do when you have invested time in building up a following for a coach or a player, and then they leave. Yes, they will take part of that with them.

Be yourself. In the long run, it's better than being SchoolBB_SID -- especially when you are no longer with that school.

1 comment:

Chris Syme said...

Good thoughts and I agree. We can help people build personal brands without the association of the school name. Besides, it's easier for them to take the name with them (cuz it's theirs) and not have to build up a whole new Twitter/blog/Facebook following. You will always be Doctor_BS no matter where you are!