transparency

As the use of social media in organizations grows, things are getting a bit messy for Millennials. We are having to navigate how to project the professional persona we want - with colleagues, bosses, and potential employers are checking our twitter and Facebook profiles - using the tools that, for us, cannot easily be limited to the professional.
 
We all have things we do and think but wouldn't advertise at work, yet if a colleague requests our Facebook friendship, we can't exactly deny them. We go through breakups, we take unflattering pictures, we sweat when we run 5Ks. We all have opinions on politics and religion. I wouldn't add to my resume or cover letter that I find Will Ferrell extremely funny, my favorite song to sing at karaoke night is Weezer's "Say It Ain't So," and, oh yeah, this is what I look like in a bathing suit. But since colleagues can access my facebook profile as easily as my resume, some of the stuff that, as a professional, I wouldn't mention to my intern, my CEO or my grantee is on the table.
 
It feels a little like some social media tools have been hijacked by the professional world. In 2004, Millennials were using Facebook purely to connect with friends, share pictures, personal interests, and now that the corporate and nonprofit worlds are beginning to recognize a value in Facebook for marketing, fundraising, advocacy, they are eager to capitalize on those benefits, our generation's expertise in using the tool, and our robust networks. And I agree that social media can be extremely valuable for organizations, and they help breathe new life into causes and missions. But does that mean pieces of our personal online personas need to die?
 
In some ways, I think letting the personal bleed into the professional has a positive impact. I'm not so interested in following people on Twitter that just read like an RSS feed direct from their organization's marketing department. It's like signing up to see commercials. But I follow @Zappos because he is clearly a person with thoughts that go beyond how he's going to sell me more fabulous shoes. I follow @tomjd and @AshokaTweets because I find them both interesting, but I maintain @tomjd has something that @AshokaTweets lacks. He reaches a new audience with his "personal" tweets but also exposes them to his work at Ashoka.
 
I appreciate that Craig Newmark has a soft spot for squirrels, and even though guides to professional success would tell me to hide any Susie Homemaker tendencies in the workplace, I do enjoy baking. Do we risk losing respect by revealing some of our quirks? Or do we risk more by keeping all of them offline? Will we get to the point where it doesn't matter?
 
So, what's a Millennial to do?
This is something I have struggled with, but I try to walk the line between professional and personal because I think it serves the best of both, but even doing that, there are tricky times. Friends from college might complain that I blew up their twitterfeed from a philanthropy conference, and colleagues probably don't care about seeing the Facebook pictures of the time I met Tyler Hansbrough's dad at the Final 4. That's my approach, but I know others who are adamant about using social media for only professional or only personal audiences or maintain two separate profiles. I don't see a perfect solution. What's yours?
 
Millennials are used to living in an interconnected world, where we share all kinds of information with peers via social networks, including the causes we care about, our spring break trips and our musical taste. It's against my nature to accept that I have to censor myself and try to live in silos that are wholly work and wholly personal. I don't think we can be authentic and still maintain that level of separation, and one day, I don't think it will feel necessary. I think Millennials and their use of social networks can usher in a new standard for transparency where we will all have to start admitting to being human. No, I don't need to know all the skeletons in everyone's closets, but I don't think we can continue to maintain the division between professional and personal lives that our parents had. Won't we all - as individuals and members of the public, private and nonprofit sectors - be better for it?