Visitor or Resident

Visitor or resident…or somewhere in between…

I was relieved to hear Dr. White talk about the visitor and resident characteristics as a continuum as opposed to an either or label. For the duration of the video I was wavering as to what I would call myself—a visitor or resident of the online world?  Much like Dr. White, I see the value of social media and the internet in my professional life. All of the feature writing that I do is accessible online, I oversee our departments social media presence, and the majority of the marketing efforts that I manage are internet-based; in that way I have to call myself a resident. I have intentionally left a trace of my organization and myself online.

Sometimes competing with my very public professional persona are my personal trepidations about putting myself out there. I have been resistant with embracing the internet in my personal life mostly because I am a naturally private person and I don’t see equivalent gains with creating a personal online presence. This blog and my new personal twitter account are stretching my boundaries and I’m curious to see if I will keep this up after the duration of the course. Only time will tell.