In November of this year, the word “selfie” was declared the word of the year by Britain’s Oxford University Press. For those of you that have been living in a cave for the last several years, a selfie is “a photograph taken of oneself, typically taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” Unlike staged photos contained in the corporate annual reports orin LinkedIn profiles of those that don’t get it, selfies are a form of spur of the moment, impromptu self-expression and show the real you. It shows the person you can or cannot be friends with, the person having a bad hair day, the real interests they have, the person that you could watch TV or go to a sporting event with, or the person you can get embarrassed with and still not care.

If you’re 40 plus years of age and have teenagers, you have probably have seen selfies and not even know it. Selfies are not only done by teenagers, they are done by astronauts, celebrities, authors, religious leaders, presidents, your ex-girlfriend, and yes even me.

So why not trust someone without a selfie?

Selfies show a person’s willingness to exhibit their true self, not a staged photo or something that the public relations department has grilled over many times to send the “right message.” They show the person’s willingness to engage with you and have a conversation about real life issues. As Gary Vaynerchuk indicated in Forbes magazine, it has to be you, it cannot be delegated or outsourced. It has to be the person that is willing to show their true personality. So go out and take that selfie today and send me a pic on Twitter to @affygility.

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Yep. I’m Dean Calhoun and we develop awesome EHS software, and perform potent compound safety consulting projects for companies throughout the world. Connect with me on LinkedIn.