Prismatic Sense-making
Don’t stop a’bloggin’.
Before the internet, manifestations of the self were quite easy to define. Self-narratives were found in art and story since the beginning of time, and we can see it in portraits, sculptures, even mirrors and now photos/videos. In the Twentieth Century the scientific/industrial revolution gave us more insight into ourselves, but it was also more reductionist - leaving people with one image, one identity and one life narrative. (I’d be interested to know more about the origins and history of this, I’m sure someone with more time on their hands has already done so). Now the YahMicroFaceGoogle’s of the world are entrenching this view through their “real names” policy and opposition to the “right to be forgotten”. This brings us to this Forbes article I read this week about the new book by Mitch Joel, “ Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It”. It’s all about branding your online identity and offers three lessons for re-invention via social media:
1. Know that your personal brand is three-dimensional. We have moved beyond the typical 8.5 x 11 white piece of paper resume. Your resume is now links. These links should take everyone to who you truly are and how you make yourself connect to the rest of the world.
2. Embrace the squiggly. It used to be that professionals would change jobs a handful of times throughout their careers. Now, we have individuals changing careers as much as they used to change their jobs. It’s not clean. It’s not a straight line. It’s very squiggly. Embrace the squiggly.
3. Publish. Reading isn’t enough (but you should read as much as you can everyday). Reading plus publishing = success. Whether it’s a blog, Twitter, tumblr or Pinterest, publishing to the world demonstrates how you think and what you care about. It doesn’t have to be the biggest blog in the world… it just has to be you and it has to be intelligent. That act of critically thinking and publishing it (on a regular schedule) will help you transcend the ordinary.
Two themes come through here; the need for constant and pervasive content-production, and “the squiggly” - which seems to be Joel’s own invention, but strikes me as an easily digestible version of the Prismatic Self. It doesn’t challenge the individual’s identity, but still dictates that things must constantly change and guides them to be open and non-linear (If he had a more spiritual leaning I’d think Joel would use “This too shall pass” to make his point).
Why has online content-production (be it blogging, tweeting, podcasting, instagraming or GIF-ing) become so essential for modern self-identity? I believe the answer is at the heart of the Prismatic Self and the concept of sense-making.
I was lucky enough to attend a talk on complexity theory by leading researcher and academic David Snowden. This broad-ranging talk had many great revelations for me, this key quote (with some liberties) summed it up nicely. “ A system is like a spider’s web, it must be built anew every morning… (Similarly) Human beings are naturally complex. They have multiple personalities, and move among them constantly… (It is through) Micro-narratives that human sense-making can happen.” Snowden probably explains his concepts better himself, describing the methodology used to extract value from micro-narratives in his “SenseMaker” app (http://youtu.be/SkRe7Xg7pk4). If you want more Snowden videos I also recommend http://youtu.be/2Hhu0ihG3kY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8, but be sure to check out his website at http://cognitive-edge.com/.
But what does this mean for the Prismatic Self? In most contexts the notion of sense-making is focused on how we as information-consumers digest and process the information-rich environment we are in. However how I use it (and I believe Snowden uses it) is all about our own micro-narratives and sense-making of our own nature. Online environments means that our selves can alter context so rapidly that the transition from macro-narrative to micro-narratives is becoming more frequent, and consequently long-term definitions of self are becoming more incoherent. I think that Snowden’s model for sense-making and capturing micro-narratives will become more fundamental to the way we live. Probably along the lines of Quantitative Self techniques - to call it a “Qualitative Self movement” would be absurd, but accurate - but blogging is close enough for now.
To somehow sum up this radically divergent post, I found some wisdom in the title of this article from Sarah Prout, “Your word is you’re wand”. In many ways, blogging is helping us come to understand (again) the power of journaling and sense-making. By creating more acceptance for “The Squiggly” and “Micro-narratives”, we may create space for the discovery of the Prismatic Self.
