The PrivateYOU vs PublicYOU

Issues of privacy that are increasingly being raised in a world with less and less of it, have been on my mind a lot lately. This is becoming more prominent, particularly since the world I entered a few years ago seems to have less privacy than the East Coast world I left behind.

Part of it is a social-cultural thing (i.e., the wild west) and part of it is an economic/industry-cultural thing. (i.e., Internet/Web 2.0 community)

When my private birthday party got 'ValleyWagged', the thought of that ever happening was the furthest from my mind. Yet, when I go to another event or party, and the cameras come out, I NOW assume that there is the potential (no, strong likelihood) that any photo will land on flickr or another photo sharing site.

I just finished a sneak preview of the Cult of the Amateur which brings up a number of disturbing points. Even though Keen's book is not due out until June, I think he'll get slammed when it spreads through the Web 2.0 community.

Regardless of how people will feel about his bias, there are disturbing facts we cannot ignore about where this new always online world is taking us whether we want to go there or not. After a lengthy discussion about privacy and new rites of passage recently with industry friends, I came home to read another blog post about privacy, a reminder that it is frequently on people's minds.

In Emre Sokullu's Limits of Privacy on the Social Web, he gives us the below diagram which is meant to represent all of US - we, "slaves of the popular Internet culture and participants in the massive user-generated social web."

He explains:
* Blue Dashed Line is your moment-by-moment outer side, what others see, the obviously apparent things in your life;
* Red Cloudy Thing is the sum of your thoughts, ideas, souvenirs and things in your life (not just momentary);
* Black Inner Circle is your most intimate side, your fears, things that you generally choose to hide from other people;
* Green Arrows represent your relationships and communications with other people.

His context is interesting....he talks about new services that are pulling us away from a green arrow life and closer to a less private world in the blue and red zones.

Twitter is blue blue blue baby. With blogs, flickr and del.icio.us, he says red red red, although I'd put them in the blue category as well.

While he suggests that social networking belongs in the green category, most of this is done online, NOT in person, so I'd also throw it into the blue and red categories. Some of these online communications turn into physical meetings, but more often than not, these people remain in a virtual world. It's the same group that thrive on Second Life and sitting in front of their computers for hours watching YouTube videos.

He writes about the black inner circle. That leads us back to privacy and what people are prepared to do in the new 'open world.'

He refers to an open source project called OpenHuman. After it got Slashdotted, he got over 1,200 members and apparently some people put their naked picture online. Even though they uploaded their naked pictures, I wonder - how many really meant to post their naked pictures? OR, has the Internet become a place where there is so much competition between blogs and social networking sites that people feel the need to become more and more extreme just to get noticed?

He concludes with the simple argument that some think that by opening yourself to the world too much, you lose some of your power, that your weaknesses become apparent. Sure, you can lose some of your power by opening up yourself too much but not necessarily because your weaknesses become more apparent.

In all of us, there is a space we want to reserve for no one else but ourselves. It is here that we reflect and just be without explaining why we're being or doing. An old industry pal Mark Epply, founder of Traveling Software/Laplink, who many in the Web 2.0 space have never heard of, reminded me of an incredibly valuable ritual. The Aussies refer to it as 'walkabout,' which is an Australian pidgin term referring to the Aborigines who 'go walkabout' at 13 in the wilderness as part of their rite of passage.

There are always times when you simply just need to go 'walkabout,' where you walk the universe aimlessly, sit on the edge of a cliff and stare at an ocean or climb a mountain just because the wind and the air and the nothingness gives you an incredible amount of power and strength, more than you can possibly imagine. It just happens, you don't know why or how you got there, and you simply don't question it.

It is in that quiet private space that you can really create. This space often gives you perspective to see with new eyes, give in a way you never have before, push beyond your typical boundaries, love and dance as if no one is watching and simply re-energize. Those who have been there know what I'm talking about.

When you are always on, always out, whether its online or offline, there is no time for re-charging or creation. One of my favorite books: The Power of Full Engagement refers to it as Recovery Time.

In Gelb's How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, he poses the question: where are you when you get your best ideas?

The answer is not inside a news aggregator, Twitter, flickr or a social networking site. The answers are "in the shower," "resting in bed," "walking in nature," and "listening to music." In other words, inside your private self, your privateYOU not your openYOU.

In Power of Full Engagement, they maintain that "the highest form of creativity depends on a rhythmic movement between engagement and disengagement, thinking and letting go, activity and rest." And I think that this extends to aspects of your thinking and being that are both public and private. The latter is slipping further and further away and many of us are starting to wonder how far people are prepared to go in the public eye. I also wonder what it is that they really want on the other side.