I’ve just returned from the Sun Analyst Summit where I acted out industry analyst suchness in person. I had to repeatedly answer the question, “where did you come from?” which I know aimed at understanding my professional background but landed on me differently, because having been out of the workforce for five plus years I found it hard to come up with a good answer. I couldn’t say–I was with Gartner or Forrester. I couldn’t say–I was at Oracle (though I was, in 2000). I couldn’t say–I was in California and then DC and Hawaii (though I was), because who cares where I was geographically? I couldn’t say–though I wanted to–that I was in the fertile neutral zone, where disengagement and disillusionment prepares the soil for future growth.
Cote’ suggested the answer “I come from the Web” and I like that. These in-person events are so different from my everyday life that I feel I almost must force myself into physicality, almost like I do exist (professionally) primarily on the Web and only derivatively otherwise. It’s like I have to coalesce myself from bits and bytes into human form. It’s like I’m in some bad sci fi TV show about how certain people exist only virtually and then experience all sorts of culture clash when they enter the flesh world.
It’s not, of course, that I’m not a real person in every way… but that my professional activities in the past couple years have been played out almost entirely virtually. My motherhood, my friendships, my marriage–these are all solidly physical and embodied. But my work has not been. So trying to make the work me into a flesh and blood version poses some challenges.
In certain situations (e.g., an analyst summit), the me I’ve established online and in my physical life doesn’t translate into the expectations embedded in those situations. For example, I cherish my ability to work on my schedule according to my own energy ups and downs as a web worker. At an analyst event, that doesn’t work–I was scheduled from 7:30 am until 10 pm on Tuesday. That kind of schedule is so hostile to me as to be virtually impossible.
As another example, I exist in the flat webspace where it doesn’t really matter that Om is the boss on GigaOM and I am “beneath” him in some sort of organizational sense as a writer on WWD. I’m not “beneath” him in any real sense–he treats me as an equal and I do the same–we are more like partners but with different interests and investments in the business. I totally get the importance of hierarchy in certain situations, like big established companies. I used to regularly counsel my Oracle subordinates about the importance of paying attention to the organizational hierarchy. But I don’t DO hierarchies any more. I want to meet person-to-person not associate analyst-to-senior director or principal analyst-to-CEO.
When the first question is “where do you come from” and “what’s your title” instead of “what’s your story” and “what’s important to you” I know that I’ll have a hard time fitting in. Eventually we get to your story and my story and your values and my values… but if the clothes and title and previous professional accomplishments come first, it’s artifice first and authenticity later (or not at all).
Is it possible to move to a world in which authenticity comes first, where artifice has no place? Does it matter if I wear jeans to an analyst summit when everyone else is in black dress trousers and twinsets? Do my ideas have value if I didn’t come from Gartner or Forrester? I know they do, but I still feel tired by the artifice.
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Wear jeans and skip scheduled dinners, if it makes you feel more comfortable. Jeans are fine. Of course there are jeans, and jeans, but a smart pair is just fine. I often wear a dark pear of jeans and a dark sweater. some people might think that’s scruffy but then I don’t really care about that. Its probably just part of my rep.
For a speaking gig I like to try and be smart, or not, in order to “suit” what the audience is wearing. but for a conference I feel far less pressure.
Did people really ask you what your job title was as a matter of course? Perhaps we should get some mini-org charts made…
Its funny because I have a narrative for you that works well, imho. I explain when asked how you were a little burned out on tech after doing the classic Oracle thing (who wasn’t burned out in 2000?) but were re-energised by finding like minds through mommy blogging which pulled you into looking at the tools that enabled rich community creation, folks i have talked to come away impressed and wanting to talk to you. Now you’re a RedMonk associate and WWD editor. That makes you a bridging person - and therefore extremely valuable.
the last seven years weren’t dead space, they were, as you say, flesh and blood. Your experiences define you.
And I know you know that Sun people value opinions that are not Gartner and Forresters. RedMonk probably had more time with Jonathan than other firms. That should tell you something. We’re not exactly the most heavily-buttoned up outfit out there.
I personally dislike the khaki and blue shirt uniform (though it pulled me in for a bit) and would rather our men stood out a bit.
I would rather we stood out!
I think geography is a great thing to talk to. Its something that brings people together. Oh you’re from Denver! Oh I love Hawaii you know that place… etc.
At least you know where you’re from. When people ask me I am always not sure if they mean where where you born, where did you grow up, where do you live now, etc.
RedMonk is pretty low on artifice. We’re off the charts when it comes to analyst firm authenticity. Hopefully with time you’ll come to feel the same way.
Have you done any big meetings with Om and his investors, say? I would be a touch surprised if you’re absolute peers in all contexts.
Hey James, thanks for all the advice/thoughts–I know I can wear what I want, go to what I want, say what I want when people ask me “where did you come from?”–part of the issue is my own internalization of what’s appropriate/not, which is mainly why I wrote this. To argue with myself. Happy to argue with you about it too though
I suppose if I met with the VCs funding GigaOM there’d be some sort of assumption that someone was above me in the hierarchy… which is one reason why I like the arrangement I have. I probably won’t ever meet those VCs. It’s easier to meet people as an equal if you’re not solely associated with that organization, you become like a node in a network rather than a box in a hierarchy. That’s a benefit of being a bridge. Because I play multiple roles across more than one organization, it’s impossible pin me down into one place in a particular organizational structure. That’s the way I like it.
So when I say I don’t DO hierarchies it’s not to say there aren’t hierarchies around me and sometimes I have to engage with those hierarchies too–there’s money and information and other good stuff flowing through those pyramids!
Your narrative for me is exactly the one I use and it’s true. Feels weird to say it out loud though sometimes. Mommyblogging, or momblogging as I prefer, is not exactly the most respected activity on the web these days. Not quite down there with doing porno sites or creating bot-farms to spam everyone, but it doesn’t get the respect that tech and political blogging gets.
Wow, Anne, I so understand what you are talking about. I often feel the me made of electrcal impulses transmitted through the ether is more real than the physical me. It’s almost as if I didn’t become a real person until I became an Internet person.
I’m a writer, so it’s always been about the words for me. The words represent themselves, but the words also express what I consider to be the essential me. Using the Internet to spread words around has given me a new life.
Virginia - I’m about words too, and that’s probably why I moved onto the web. Now, I feel most comfortable with people who’ve read my words first and then meet me in person. I feel more real that way. Funny, because someone who didn’t like to write might feel the opposite–like having to introduce themselves through writing would obscure their authenticity.
“Using the Internet to spread words around has given me a new life.” I feel exactly the same… and thus the name of my blog “Anne 2.0.” Being able to be me on the web is like a new and improved version of me. Or maybe the me I always was but that I never had a way of expressing before.
Ah, your entry has a hidden assumption: that ideas from Gartner or Forrester are worthwhile to begin with!
Like the “analysis” on the itunes music store indicating that the sales were slowing down - see http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/0357223
which refers to an article in the oh-so-full of it register, which refers to a study by… Forrester! Which was WAY off. Apple released a statement a week later indicating that no, sales were in fact continuing to grow.
Here are some more links:
the author’s blog entry arguing people should not trash him because the press went out of control on his study:
http://blogs.forrester.com/devicesmedia/2006/12/itunes_sales_ar.html
and his original blog entry outlining the highlights from the research article:
http://blogs.forrester.com/devicesmedia/2006/12/is_20_itunes_pe.html
The main problem with his study - the sample size was WAY too small, and may suffer from a self-selection or bias problem. Essentially Forrester gets credit card data from “random” americans and then he did an analysis on which households bought itunes music. I don’t think there was any serious stats work in the report at all.
This is what goes for research at these companies apparently. So, I don’t think they represent a really good stick to measure yourself against.
PS: I have my WOW shirts and my jeans ready for any conference.
Reading this, I couldn’t help but be reminded, how, as a teenager in the 70’s and early-80’s, I’d be ringing around the BigCos trying to locate this-or-that piece of computer or electronic componentry. Invariably the person answering the phone would ask “and where are you from?” — there’d be a bit of a pause, and I’d blurt out “Er…, I’m an individual!”
Come to think of it, it would probably still happen today, except that most of my interactions are on the web, now. I guess I’d still have the same answer. I don’t want to be defined by where I work, but by what I’m interested in — or “what I’m excited about”, as Simon Willison would say).
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Virtual Me
I was just reading this post from Anne and it got me thinking about myself and who I am.
Many probably don’t know but since July 2005 when I started at SAP I became a virtual worker, I actually have a desk and I think there’s even a phone on it in…