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How WE create I

H+ Summit * June 2010Heather Schlegel * heathervescent

My Interest

• We don’t pro-actively create identities• Structures encourage behaviors• Exploration of my personal brand

June 2010 | Humanity Plus 2

The Mass Age

• Marshall McLuhan• Douglas Hofstadter• Jaron Lanier• NY Times


How I think about this

• The way we create, experience and respond to technology

• Value-sets: And the underlying values encoded in a system

June 2010 | Humanity PlusPhoto Credit: Machine Project

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Who are you?

Always the same person?


I’m not.

Fragmented (Online) Identities

• Anonymity• Pseudonyms

• When your Identity takes on a life of it’s own?– Success as stagnation– Pigeon-holed– Strange Loops: Living in another’s mind

June 2010 | Humanity PlusPhoto Credit: Viss

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Extending our Identities• Identify Externally

– Brands, Cars, Devices, Objects– Groups: Institutions, Communities, Movements– Music

• Multiple Identities– Private– Anonymous– Alternates: Avatars, Game Role-playing

• Physical modifications – Plastic surgery– Tattooing, Beauty enhancements

• Cognitive enhancers– Attention, focus, “energy”– Research, Training and Drugs

June 2010 | Humanity PlusPhoto Credit: Brazil

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The Doors of Expression

• Second Life• Gaming Worlds• Blogging, Twitter & MySpace• Personal Brands• Facebook ID Lockdown• ID Theft: Single White Female


June 2010 | Humanity PlusPhoto Credit: Evonne Amoration

Do we get lost? (I get lost)

• Avatars: Embodiment = Immersion• Caught in streams of influence• The Audience Effect• Participation & Motivation• Privacy



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Self-Value

• What do we end up valuing?• What types of identities are valued?• How does one value self?


Ownership of our Souls

• Who owns your identity?– Projected– Perception– Remembered

• Which parts are (truly) ours?• Betrayal

“I don’t even see you, I see the mental image of you in my mind.”

“I have conversations with the person you are in my mind.”


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The Truth is Easier

• Real time life tracking & Public Diaries– Blogging (& Life Streaming)– Twitter – Flickr

• Physically – 23 & me– Zeo

• Collective HistoryJune 2010 | Humanity Plus 14

And the point…

• Identity is not created in a vacuum• Iterative, Evolves• The medium is the mæssage is the

distraction.• In the end, I may create WE


Finally: Who are you?

I – I hardly know, sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several

times since then.- Lewis Carroll m

June 2010 | Humanity PlusPhoto Credit: Jeff Christiansen

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Thank You

Heather Schlegelaka heathervescent, The Purple Tornado

[email protected]
