Recently I had a chance to speak at the Gainesville Technology Conference on Reputation 2.0 and the future of identity management. .

Video should be available at some point but until then I’ve decided to use this opportunity to show off Slideshare. Unfortunately, not only do you miss a pile of entertaining anecdotes but you also have to wade your way through my notes — reason number 756 that you should join us for the next conference (tentatively scheduled for July 11th). If you see a [text] it’s time to change slides.

Table Of Contents

Part One

Digital Disassociation

Part Two

The Learning Curve

Part Three

How I Learned To Stop Worrying

Digital Disassociation

“Identity is important.” [Identity]

“Possibly the most important thing.”

“Back, way back, before the dawn of time” [cavemen]

“When the Earth was still young and man roamed the vast Savannah in search of truth and beauty” [1992]

“It was easy to know who you were.”

“I could look at myself and say self, you are an:”

[Entrepreneur]
[Engineer]
[Writer]
[Blogger]
“Pretty Decent Bowler” [bowling]

“If I was feeling particularly ambitious I’d open my wallet” [license]

“and find out a few more odds and ends:”

I was born in [September]
I am over 6 feet tall [basketball]
I live here [Orlando]
and sometimes [Gators]

“I was the only person I had to answer to. Except if for some reason I had a strong desire to flee the country” [worldmap]

“and I had to prove who I was to someone else, like:”

“Customs” [customs]
[Banks]
“Or the ocassional Federal Agents” [Federal Agents]

“Yet still, these transactions were easily arbitrated by a credit card and a picture ID.”

“Maybe, by chance, I wanted to know about someone who wasn’t me” [Rare].

“Not a problem, I would just ask around the community. If there is anything people love more than talking about themselves, it’s talking about other people” [Brittany Spears].

“Reputation was simple.” [Reputation was simple]

“If enough people believed something, it was true.” [If people believed it, it was true]

“If you didn’t like it, you defended yourself” [defense] .

“You were the gross sum of public opinion.” [You were the sum of public opinion]

“And you could look the public, right in the eyes” [Eyes].

The Learning Curve

“But then, on the 8th day, someone said, ‘let there be the Internet,’ and suddenly everything changed.” [gore].

“On that day, I looked in the mirror and asked, ‘Who am I?’” [Who am I?]

“A quick Google search gave me the answer” [google]

“President and CEO of Louisville Medical Center”

“Ph.D. Assistant Professor of French, University of Michigan”

“The Grape Guy”

“And about a dozen other characters who, while interesting, I was pretty sure I’d never met before in my life.”

“I knew what I needed to so, so began my search for myself…” [Mountain hike]

“And like anyone who is searching for anything these days, my next stop was of course…” [Ebay]

“A while back, I took to selling commemorative Elvis stamps.” [Elvis]

“Now, that is a lie…” [Lie]

“But it does serve to illustrate a point.”

“From Ebay I learned that everyone loved me!” [ebayscreen]

“Amazon, where I sell my prize beanie baby collection” [another lie]

“told me the same thing.”

“Of course, it’s always possible to game the system…” [Fraud]

“And really, who is Paulfier anyway?” [Ebayscreen]

“More importantly, none of this told me anything about myself!” [hands in the air]

What did I like?
Who did I know?
How did I feel about the world?

“That’s when I saw the light!” [stars]

“who better to tell me about me than…me.” [redundant?]

“That’s when I met Web 2.0.” [web2]

“And so the love affair began…” [loveaffair]

“On Facebook I taught people about my likes and dislikes.” [facebook]

“On Last.fm I learned about my tastes in music.” [last.fm]

“My LinkedIn profile told people my professional contacts” [linkedin].

“And my blog showed everyone how I felt about the world.” [blog]

“Of course, like all bad relationships…Things got a little out of hand. There were so many places…So many spaces!” [myspace]

“Yet still, there was an emptiness.”

“Where was the transaction?” [Where was the transaction?]

“I wasn’t only who believed I was.” [We're not just who we believe we are]

“That’s never been how reputation worked.” [That is not how reputation works]

“There was still something missing…” [puzzle]

How I Learned to Stop Worrying

“I was at a loss!”

“So I thought.” [thought]

“And thought…” [Thought]

“And thought….”.[THOUGHT]

“And when thinking failed I turned to the one undeniable source of truth in the Universe” [Wikipedia].

“There it was, the beacon of hope in the sea of turmoil that had become my existence.” [lighthouse]

“Here was a place where I could learn about myself!”

“The only problem was, no one had written anything yet…Which was depressing…” [depression]

“But at that moment I knew there was an answer here.” [The Answer]

“What I needed was to find a place that could recreate the transaction,” [Recreate the transaction]

“the our ancient forebearers once had” [hair band].

“Where I could speak about myself” [Lie].

“And people could talk about me” .

“But where could I find such a place?” [?]

“Hadn’t I searched the internet for years and come across nothing? What I had failed to realize was that while I had been searching, so had others.”

“And those others were legion” [300].

“And from them had sprung new bastions of hope.”

“With The Gorb, I could learn what the world thought about me.” [gorb]

“With Orangeply, I could see everything I’ve ever had said about me, when it was said and how popular I was as a result.”
[orangeply]

“With Spock, I could learn about famous people and what they’re up to.” [spock]

“Of course, I had my own personal preferences…” [Orangeply]

“But the point was, I had finally found myself on the web!” [smily]

“These services filled the gaps that the old web left open.”

“I could speak about myself…”
“Others could speak about me…”
“There was a community interacting around my identity.”
“This community validated my reputation.”
“And most importantly, this reputation was” [objective].

“For me, the journey was over.” [me]

“But for you, it’s just beginning.” [hike]

“The question that remains is: Do you know,” [who you are?]

“And how much is this information worth to you?”

Web 2.0 Roundup

That’s right folks, not only do I spend my time writing about Web 2.0 — sometimes, I even get the opportunity to yell at folks about it. If you have an interesting engagement, feel free to make a request using the handy contact form.