me.edu.au (myedna)

One of the problem areas of online interactivity is that some people are downright rude, and blogs have a reputation for hosting some pretty confronting conversation. An education focused site like myedna is unlikely to be seriously bothered by this problem, but there was an interesting spin on the issue in a column in the New York Times last week.

The noted columnist Tom Friedman [The World is Flat] wrote about the open nature of current society, where bloggers and others can publish what they like, instantly. And digital material is very hard to erase. So a foolish comment made ten years ago might come back to haunt you.

“The implications of all this are the subject of a new book by Dov Seidman, founder and C.E.O. of LRN, a business ethics company. His book is simply called “How.” Because Seidman’s simple thesis is that in this transparent world “how” you live your life and “how” you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor. To win now, he argues, you have to turn these new conditions to your advantage.”

“The persistence of memory in electronic form makes second chances harder to come by,” writes Seidman. “In the information age, life has no chapters or closets; you can leave nothing behind, and you have nowhere to hide your skeletons. Your past is your present.” So the only way to get ahead in life will be by getting your “hows” right.”

Friedman went on say that employers now routinely do a google search on applicants for positions to see what presence the person has on the web. Their MySpace persona might not accord with what their resume says!

So the upshot of this transparency may well be that we have a strong incentive to guard our reputation online, and to put your best foot forward, conscious that one’s online audience might be much wider than we imagine. That is a refreshingly positive view and a realistic one too, I think.

We generally behave very well in public places, like the cinema, or in a shop, not just because we are all nice people, but because we have learned that there are sanctions for bad behaviour in public. It looks as though we are developing an awareness of sanctions against bad behaviour online too.