I was missing your posts, Autom. Nice one.
Pachi.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by autom8: Going with the flow..without you http://tr.im/HCLi or the “Theatre of Attention” or Eliza Doolittle yelling: “Move yer bloomin’ arse!”…

as for branding, i doubt that there’s an overwhelming majority that find logo-based avatars *that* disdainful. simply because you don’t have a human face to your avatar, it doesn’t mean your level of integrity or authenticity is automatically diminished. in its most basic form, a brand is a symbol. that symbol can be anything from a face to an abstract object. as long as the symbol communicates clearly i see no reason why there should be an imposed requirement to associate that symbol specifically with a human face.

i was speed reading through the Chartrand post and glanced briefly at the comment stream. i see your sentiment over this but would also like to point out one thing: that she claims to be a good writer. first, she may in fact be a good writer, which is likely why she’s able to tell such a compelling (although somewhat long) tale. second, i somehow fail to see why the main point of her post should be interpreted as an appeal for closer scrutiny over gender discrimination among writers. writers come in all shapes, sizes and styles..i find the thrust of this argument to be incredibly anachronistic, if not slightly misleading. i think the *manner* in which she positioned her plight made it easy for readers to sympathize with her..i think she’s a capable writer. overall it was an easy-to-read piece, but the heavy colloquialism was distracting, and quite frankly i couldn’t get into it..can’t explain it, it’s a visceral reaction to the piece.

nonetheless..you know i value your thoughts and how you readily and spontaneously share them. thanks again..and thanks for ‘going with the flow’ cheers a

This is a thought provoking post, and one that resonates with me, especially in light of some thoughts I’ve parsed on this day. The first begins with my agreement on the nascent aspects of measuring social influence, and the comment made in response to Marshall Sponder’s post on the need for monitoring vendors to take social influence measurement to the next stage (here’s a link share to my comment).

The second thought comes from a discussion I had with Mark Schaefer earlier today. Part of our discussion revolved around branded Twitter profiles, and I’ll admit that “standard practice” with branded profiles is one area with which I’ve grappled for some time. Namely, the way logo’s are used as avatars on branded accounts and they way they may be regarded with disdain or less interest than those with a photo of the person behind the profile. Associated to this notion is that brands that don’t put a human face to their profiles are likely the ones that will assume the role of shill marketer or spam-machine.

I still need to sort this out a little more in my mind, and if I had a choice, I would prefer not to succumb to this blanketing and false impression that follows branded Twitter accounts. In some ways, I consider the amount of followers to date as a testament to the value audiences have placed on my participation on Twitter and in the social Web. Sadly, its nowhere near as tragic as finding out the way overarching rules, conduct and outdated social modality creeps in and forces bloggers such as James Chartrand to hide the truth about their gender to get work. When we read stories like @menwithpens’ we are hit with the sobering reality that we are far from understanding the true value of participation as equals, and have much work ahead of us in figuring out “influence” through social and widespread acceptance rather than commodified and false universality.

Joseph
@RepuTrack