Step 4: Build Your Own Presence and Digital Bodymind
NOTE: This is a rough first draft. Still to do:
- Write a conclusion
- Subheaders and links to external sites
- Possible repositioning of large sections – I don’t know if I have the flow correct in this section
This portion of the HOWTO deals with how to build what Everett Bogue calls your “second self” on the Internet. It is the core feature of his Web site (http://www.evbogue.com), and it is goal to dive deeply into this subject. However, there are are a few considerations he has left us to work with in order to get a start on his vision of being able to build fully autonomous second selves and digital bodyminds.
This chapter is not about implementation of the digital bodymind. The information I am presenting here is in order to build the digital bodymind itself – the self that you wish to present online.
The first item to determine is if you really need to have a digital bodymind. Building a digital bodymind is not the same as using technology to augment your physical presence. The digital bodymind is how you are perceived on the Internet. While Everett describes this as your “second self”, it is a part that needs to be integrated with other aspects of your being like your physical structure, you financial structure and your emotional bodymind, amongst others. Like the clothing you wear and the lifestyle choices you partake in the physical world, the digital bodymind is how you are perceived in the online world.
It may be that after reading this step that you do not feel it to be appropriate to have a fully developed digital bodymind at this time. That’s perfectly acceptable. However, it is important to note the concepts here so that they can be used in your social media communications similar to Facebook and even sites like Yelp. Understanding how to present yourself online even in popular environments will help you build a good bodymind if you choose to build your own presence on the Web without the aid of other sites.
The next action item is to understand and determine what your digital bodymind will look like. This is the most important action item of this step! Have a conversation with yourself about how you would like to present yourself over the Internet. What do you want to focus on? What content do you wish to deliver? In a world that is rapidly approaching seven billion storytellers and contributors, your influence on the Internet is as unique as you want to be. This conversation doesn’t have to be out loud to yourself – that might look strange in public or even amongst family – but some contemplation of how you would like to be perceived based on the content you deliver is very important.
While you are determining what your digital bodymind will look like and how it will operate, use pen and paper to sketch out and write ideas about how this will look. It is important not to get caught up in the specifics of how this will look; for instance a complete Web portal design isn’t necessary. Instead, the conversation should focus on what kind of Web presence to have, what content to produce and deliver, and what involvement in social media you would like to have.
For instance, Everett’s setup looks like this:
- Everett has one Web site (www.evbogue.com) to post ideas and print content for free. His blog is set up to not allow comments to minimize the amount of time he uses for moderation. Moderation isn’t bad if a Web site doesn’t get a lot of traffic, but at 50k visitors a month lots of comments are a drain on his time. His Web site doesn’t allow for direct contact with Ev, though he was experimenting with a contact form to allow people to pay him to answer questions. (I don’t know how that experiment is going.)
- Everett has a pay-for-access content site (http://www.letterly.com/evbogue) where subscribers can pay a monthly fee to receive higher quality content.
- Twitter is his preferred communication method. He uses Twitter to respond to blog ideas and to forward comments and rebuttals made on other sites. He is currently experimenting with following less than 10 people at this time and has regularly followed less than fifty people for a significant amount of time.
- Ev uses Instagram (http://instagr.am) to post photos in the moment. Links to the photos go to Twitter.
- Ev does have an about.me page (http://about.me/evbogue) which acts as a one-page portal.
- Ev is posting videos to Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com) but has used YouTube previously.
- Everett is considering using Path (http://path.com) to post additional audio and video content. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but my understanding is that it is used to post to a certain number of people (50 or less) instead of allowing it to be publicly viewable.
Now that you understand how his setup works, let’s discuss how to build your digital bodymind.
It is important to first understand and clean up what you currently have on the Internet today. The Internet has a very good memory that can be accessed almost instantaneously. Sites like the Wayback Machine and social media can keep track of what content you have contributed over time. For instance, if you look hard enough my original site was about becoming an MIS specialist. The MIS stood for Manifestation, Intuition and Spirituality in my case. I wrote some good content; however, what I found was that it didn’t suit me so I went tabula rasa (blank slate) when it became apparent that I needed to start over. I can certainly state that those previous digital bodyminds were useful to the evolution of my current one (e.g. This Web site), but that doesn’t mean they have to live on forever! As the first action step, review where you exist on the Internet today. Fortunately, most digital bodyminds and the tools used to interact with them focus on the present. However, you don’t want an old site to attract the majority of your traffic.
Older blogs, Web pages and previous forms of Internet presence can lay dormant for years without you remembering them. Like old memories, you may or may not want to let go of your old works. However, it is a good idea to remove unwanted sites and other presences from the Internet so that there is one draw, one focal point, one portal for a consistent look. You certainly can and should link to other sites that are important (like social media profiles), but the important thing is to build it based on who you are now.
The second step in building your digital bodymind is squarely focused on content. Quality content is how you will be judged and perceived on the Internet.
One of the most important things about content is what to post about. I can’t answer this question for everyone because it will vary amongst everyone on the planet. However, I will suggest something that may help you identify what you wish to make as part of your digital bodymind. The trick is to start writing in private first.
For me, it was necessary to start writing in private to develop my digital bodymind and the worldview that I wanted to express with it. This goes beyond having a few blog posts ready when launching your site and a couple of months’ worth of blog posts in case the physical plane becomes more important. The identity you present on the Internet should be as clear and as consistent as you can make it; therefore writing in private becomes very important. One of the things I did was to sign up for 750 Words and started writing. I did this in accordance with working through the book “The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron. For me, the outlet of 750 Words isn’t meant to be something I publish for the public. If I have some good thoughts that bubble up there, I may use them in my public writing. However, 750 Words is a great way to vent and let go of things that I don’t need to have come up in my writing. A paper journal will do just as well, but have something private so you can have somewhere to let things flow and develop, even if they are rants.
At this point you may be wondering why it is important to write in private first. While speech is largely regarded as free on the internet in terms of liberty, the content you produce is how people find out who you are. Some people may feel the need to rant and rave about current events, politics, work situations, or anything else that comes to mind. Certainly there are forums that exist for it, and I’m not going to stop you from starting a blog to express your feelings about these issues. However, to build a second self as Everett describes, it is very important to have clarity on what face you are presenting as your digital bodymind.
If I come across a blog that, say, voices dissent against a specific politician or political wing, I’m going to have a different impression of its authors than I would by reading someone like Steve Pavlina. (He’s changed quite a bit from when I first started reading his blog.) I’m certainly not immune against wanting to let off steam, and sometimes I have a strong opinion that I feel needs to be heard. That’s healthy, and I wouldn’t expect anyone to repress those feelings. However, there are plenty of blogs that focus on opinion. In building a digital bodymind and the second self that Everett is talking about, the key focus is on contribution. How can you make your readers and viewers better off from what you are creating? It could be a form of art, or it can be other useful content. Being authentic and caring for your readership goes a long way too. But what Ev and I both feel is that there’s plenty of opinion out there that doesn’t serve anyone except the person who is writing it to let off steam. (If you don’t believe me, read some of the comments posted on CNN news stories.)
The point of writing in private to start is to let emotions and thoughts flow and to get them on paper to develop an authentic voice that focuses on contribution. Building a powerful digital bodymind is based on having a clear awareness and development of your thoughts. The world doesn’t want your op-ed article; the world wants what you can fully contribute.
Once you start writing in private, you will also know if you have enough will and material to publish for an extended period of time. Note that the private content generation isn’t necessarily limited to writing; you could produce podcasts, audio recordings or video that has the same effect. In fact, content production is a great way to experiment with new tools and avenues of publishing. Just make sure it is set to private if possible before continuing to post. Anything private and test-like should remain private!
The idea of private writing extends to the next planning stage of your digital bodymind: how to layer your access. Layering your access is important because you want to control what information you give to whom. For instance, few people would give out their address and phone number on a public Web site. While the transparency of this move is unparalleled, it’s just not safe if you get a lot of traffic directed to your site. You may get calls from unwanted people, unexpected house visitors or even robbed when you go on vacation. You wouldn’t give your phone number to anyone, so why disclose every last bit of your life to everyone on the Internet? It’s possible that the latest generations may just do that because they are comfortable with the transparency, but for most of us that won’t feel comfortable.
One of the biggest questions you have to answer in terms of layering access is if you wish to offer paid access. This works similar to a paid membership site, except it could be a blog or other content site of your choice. Everett is doing this now with letter.ly, where you can subscribe to get deeper content and access by supporting his site. However, I don’t recommend having a paid access layer until your digital bodymind is firmly established and you start receiving questions about what else you can offer. To start building your digital bodymind, focus on providing content for free to start. If the paid access model appeals to you, there are plenty of ways to go about it – but start offering good content in an authentic voice for free first.
Layering access extends beyond the pay/free question. Going back to “would you post your phone number on a public site” question, layering what you present to people is very important. On a very public site like Twitter, it isn’t the best idea to air everything out. The same goes with a blog. However, sites like Path and Facebook (if it’s set up properly, which can be a challenge) can offer specific access to specific people. Some sites like Posterous can be made to be password protected in case you want to share specific information with specific people.
Layering access also extends to your e-mail address and direct methods of contact. Remember that in Step 3 that decluttering your e-mail is an important step in preserving your digital bodymind. It’s important to remember this when providing some access to your blog or Web site. Do you want to have people freely contact you? If so, it might be best to include a content form instead of posting your e-mail directly for everyone to see. That way you can direct the e-mail to other Web sites and keep a personal e-mail, well, personal. One of the things that helped me and visitors to my blog is to spell out a social media policy where people can find me and how they can interact with me using social media tools. For instance, people can visit my LinkedIn profile, but only people who I have met in person are accepted into my network on that site. Similarly, anyone on Twitter can follow me, but I’m not necessarily going to follow back. If it’s important that you get in contact with me, you better use Twitter or send me a note on my contact form – and that’s transparent for everyone to see.
As you can see, spending time to determine what to post and how to layer access to you directly is very important. Once this is done, we can now discuss the actual tools used to create your digital bodymind.
The tools for creating a digital bodymind are evolving rapidly. Some can support a minimal amount of content, while others can support a powerful presence including fully paid access and content. The tools you use will revolve around two key factors: What you want to post, and how technically savvy you are.
The tools to house what you want to post are fairly straightforward. For instance, I wouldn’t want to post my videos directly to my blog, as those eat up a lot of disk space and bandwidth that I am allocated each month. However, I can post the video to YouTube or Vimeo, and then embed a link in a post that people can click on or have a viewer come up in my blog post. That way YouTube is responsible for the bandwidth while I can house specific content. The same can be said for pictures – use Picasa or Flickr instead. When designing your digital bodymind, you will have to take into consideration what you intend to post and where. Regardless of what you choose to house content, Everett and I recommend starting a blog of some sort because a) you will be most likely writing something at some point and b) it will serve as the portal to your second self.
In terms of techological savvy, some tools require more time and patience to configure. For those people who are not as savvy, a site like Posterous can work really well. Posterous has the ability to accept multiple formats and can have you up and contributing content within minutes. More in-depth content management requires a heavier system like WordPress. WordPress comes in two flavors: a free site (WordPress.com) and the software that you can use to fully manage your content on your own site (wordpress.org).
If you’re starting out, my recommendation is to start with a free site like Posterous or WordPress.com. You can add in extra features like your own domain name later on. Both Posterous and WordPress.com make for excellent private sites as well. That way you can focus on generating content, which takes up the most time by far, instead of dealing with hosting services and the like. It’s also good to use these sites as experimental tools if you’ve never built a digital bodymind before; you might find that you do not like it and the only cost involved is your time in building your site.
If you are committed to building a powerful Web presence, or you find that you’ve outgrown a free site, the next step is to move to a hosted site using the WordPress software from wordpress.com. The cost of setting up and maintaining a site, including a domain name, shouldn’t be much more than US$100 a year. However, it behooves you to fully research your potential hosting providers and what options you have regarding the transfer of information between Web sites. In particular, one-click WordPress installations are a lifesaver unless you’re enjoy being a site administrator.