Your Digital Identity
/You need a digital identity, a digital home.
Not on Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, or whatever social medium is the trend of the day. You need your very own proprietary "me" digital identity. Sure, use social to promote "you", but don't put "you" on social. You need to own you. It doesn't belong to anyone else but you.
And, I think it is about time to get rid of the email juggle. You know, we have an email address for personal, for work, for that side project we are working on, the non-profit we are involved in, the email addresses from prior employers, and services that we have used in the past. All of them need to go. It's nuts to juggle that many ways to get a message. No wonder everyone hates email.
You have your digital identity, now you need the one way to reach you. Why not just "you@you.com" or whatever domain you have picked for yourself?
To make this happen I think two things have to change.
First, employers have to encourage you to promote you. And they need to make it easier for you to work for them, and to promote yourself, which from my perspective builds and encourages the relationship and expands what the employee is capable of and exposed to. For those with a scarcity mentality, hard to fathom, for those that think there is more than enough to go around, a great thing! Me, I think there is more than enough to go around. What do I care if you work for me and your email address is you@you.com? If it's easier for you and easier for me to reach you. Great!
The second barrier is you. I have run into many people that are worried about their privacy, spam, identity theft, and the list goes on. They feel the best way to be safe is to remain as anonymous as possible. They want the corporate email. They don't want their picture anywhere. They don't want to share anything socially that has their name on it, etc. etc. Yes, you may be anonymous and in some ways it may be "safer" but what are you really doing for you? Are you building your brand? Marketing your expertise? Growing your reputation and by doing that increasing the number of opportunities that you are exposed to? No. None of that. You are locking yourself down. You may feel safe but you are doing nothing, I would actually say hurting, your economic security and growth.
Establish your digital identity. Employers encourage employees to do this. The more you build your brand, your opportunities, and experience, the more valuable you are to an organization. You win, your employer, partner, whatever, wins.