The hardest thing about being online is combining and sharing all of  our lives personas not just one.

Last week I created my About.me splash page.  I posted about it a few days ago, you can see it here.

I think About.me is cool and timely as more and more of our identity is moving online.  Setting up an About.me profile should take no more than 10 minutes, but it took me a lot longer than that.

Writing my bio took 10 minutes.  Adding my online sites, like this blog or Twitter and Facebook took less than 5 minutes.  What took the bulk of my time was the picture.  I anguished over what picture to add.  I knew what ever picture I put up would set the tone for everything else.  It would create the first impression and what made it so difficult is unlike offline where we operate between different personas, online incorporates all of our personas. My About.me page needed to capture the entire me, not just one part me and the pic was going to play a HUGE role in that.

Offline we have always separated our multiple personas (our work, home, buddies, etc.) carefully cultivating each for the appropriate situation.  The online world doesn’t work that way.  At least I don’t think it should and it’s this confluence of my entire person into one page that made picking my picture so difficult.

I’m a sales executive.  I’ve run sales teams for start-ups and Fortune 500 companies.  I am dead serious about my work.  I continue to be very successful developing highly productive and professional sales teams.  I am very proud of the impact I have on organizations.  I am a student of sales and business and continually look for ways to improve, grow and strengthen myself, my team and the organizations I work for.  I’m a driver. I get at problems with vengeance and measure myself on what I accomplish.

What I’m not is a corporate cog.  I am the guy who calls out the elephant in the room. I won’t be bullied.  I won’t do things just because.  I can’t stand hierarchy without merit.  I respect hierarchy with merit.  I’m a risk taker, but not foolish.  I thrive on data, but am never bound by it. I am very young at heart, but DON’T confuse that with being immature. I am competitive and when I take on things, I like to be the best.  I am a PSIA certified ski instructor. I love bump skiing and I am learning to throw huge air, despite the fact that I’m 42. (check out my day in the foam pit) I’m also a husband and a dad to 3 crazy little girls. There is nothing simple about me and that’s what made picking out my picture so difficult.

A pic in a 3 button suit, with a spread collar, french cuff shirt, wasn’t going to cut it. (but yes I do have that outfit, I am in sales remember.)  It’s to stiff. A plain, casual pic wasn’t going to cut either.  It doesn’t tell a story.  And that was why it was so hard to pick my pic.  How do you tell an accurate story of the entire you without over emphasizing just one part of who you are?

Just like you, I am complicated with multiple facets to who I am.  It’s the confluence of these traits that makes me good at what I do.

Being online makes it more difficult to build walls.  We are going to have to learn to manage all of our different personas in one.  It will be clumsy for a while.  We’ll make mistakes, however in the end, we will all have a much better understanding of who we are engaging with and that is good for everyone.

This is the About.me page.

So what do you think?   Did I pick the right picture?  What does my About.me page say to you about me?