One of the great misconceptions of the Internet is that people have control over how they are perceived online. This illusion is a carry over from “the real world” where people can manage the perception they give off by how they dress, how they speak, and how they present themselves.
On the Internet, without the benefit of people being able to really “know” a person, they only get fractional glimpses of you. As a result, people have to fill in the holes with their own preconceived notions.
The closest thing in the real world we get to that is in politics where savvy politicians do their best to make sure there are large holes in which their handlers can then encourage people to fill those gaps with their hopes and dreams. But on the Internet, it’s virtually impossible to have any control over how those gaps in perception are filled.
My day job is at Stardock where I’m the President and CEO. It’s a company with dozens of different projects in development at any one time. I generally don’t get involved in any particular project unless it is (a) critical to the company overall and ( needs executive intervention. Unless you’re a mom and pop shop, you can’t micro-manage any given project or you doom it to failure.
When an executive intervenes, their goal is to bring in resources from other units to solve a given problem. When things go well, it’s invisible to the general public. When things go wrong, well, that’s when one begins to lose control of their online persona.
For example, my own persona has been filled with the perception that I’m a “control freak”. Those who have worked at Stardock know this is the opposite of reality. When things are going well, I just read through reports from the PMs and give a thumbs up. The joke on Neowin.net (a site we own that few people are even aware of because it runs smoothly) I rubber stamp everything from the PM. Same for WinCustomize.com and the Enterprise group. The same is usually true on the games side of our company as well. My job is to make sure the PMs have the resources they need to execute and to provide a general design of the given product in question with the PM filling in the details (whether that be DeskScapes, Multiplicity, Object Desktop, GalCiv, Elemental, or you name it). On external projects, I’m usually more hands off unless things start to “go south”.
Usually I can intervene and solve it and the public is never aware of how close things came to blowing up. Sometimes, however, the intervention comes too late or is beyond my capability to solve. In nearly 20 years, we’ve only had two big failures – the Demigod networking and the Elemental launch. In both cases, my job was to identify the problems, work with the team to design a solution and then gather the resources to make it happen. In Demigod’s case, I brought in the Impulse team to fix it. That was something only the CEO could do since Stardock’s game publishing group obviously had no say over the Impulse dev team. In Elemental’s case, we lacked sufficient management to implement the game design and in this case, my intervention involved personally jumping into the code to see what elements of the design could get in. In the end, it was not even close to sufficient –- though if you work enough 100+ hour weeks in a row and you’d be surprised how your mind can fool you into thinking everything’s fine (it’s still good! it’s still good! it’s just a little slimy, it’s still good!).
The point being, when you are online, the more activity that surrounds you in one way or the other the more people will want to fill in the gaps of your public persona. The narrative can be positive or negative. Sometimes the narrative works in your favor beyond any reasonable justification and other teams it works just the opposite.
My advice to those who, like me, “live on the net” is this: Don’t get too invested in your online persona. You will never be able to control how people perceive you because human nature abhors a vacuum and they will fill it with their hopes, dreams, and prejudices that have nothing to do with who you really are.
Bet you feel small,It happens to us all.
Time is nowTo spread your voiceTime's to come, there'll be no choice,
Why d'you feel small?It happens to us all.
~ Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues
I know....I'm still making payments on mine.
I'm not surprised, Gandalf still owns the copyright for that hat
I realize that there is a great deal of assumption due to perception; control freak is not something I associated with the CEO of Stardock. Any CEO worth his mettle knows to surround yourself with the best and let them do their jobs under the guidance of communal vision---something at which, I believe SD excels. I have always despised micro managing on both sides of the fence.
One too insistent on his own views finds few to agree with him--Lao Tzu
I was once inspired by the old Micro-naught action figures--anybody remember those?---to create a set of Dilbertesque figures called the Micro Managers..but I digress...
...I don't consider Captain Picard a micro manager but I'm not so sure about JTK? Anybody have any thoughts on that?
BTW, Stardock--stay the course. You are doing a great job!
Cheers.
and who owns google then?
Remind me of this:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/371552
I think part of this is assumptions people make about CEOs.
The problem with an online persona is that you don't get the body language, voice inflections, ect. of people. Just cold, unemotional words.
I always assume the best of people, just to keep my own faith in the human race not being a bunch of idiots...
In the words of Mike Meyers as Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me: "Yes yes NO! NO!" I believe that retorts your first line sufficiently.
You actually get the other person adding in their own anger and hate because they misread what you said and failed to take it as cold and emotionless. I only wish half the people who are pissed off at me took what I said as cold and emotionless. But alas, I'm an asshole for helping out. My karma says as much. Thanks Ryat. I used to try and assume the best of people, then I joined a sports forum and realized they really are a bunch of idiots. The only intelligent people are heavily involved in the fantasy games and they're just too geeky even for me. I tolerate a lot of crap, but damn... Yeah, so people suck. I gotta read your lore post now.
awesome post
Well...the emoticon come in handy to a degree...but then you have those people that can't figure out their own feelings or how their trying to express themselves and make it worse by using the wrong one.
Yeah...I usually try and do this as well...but my faith in the human race has been getting its ass kicked lately.
I'm the same way, always try to see the best in people. In the last year though, I've learned something about that. This is a little story about how weird life can be...
At least for me, it was my Internet Community experiences that made me want to pursue this saintly path of believing people are good. Too many meaningless arguments with people you don't know makes you realize how meaningless arguments are. Upon returning to the real-world, (Read: Life, Land of the Living,) I found out something rather interesting, all caused by an encounter with a... Let's call him an old nemesis.
We never got along in High School, he'd pick on me and what-not. I was never the confrontational type, so I just ignored it. But I ran into him again somewhat recently. He was still a jerk. I was no longer non-confrontational. Rather, I had become non... Well, I didn't wanna just ignore him, but I didn't wanna lash out at him either. So I walked up to him, said hi, started talking to him like we were old friends. That's when his girlfriend, (I assume it was his girlfriend, for reasons explained later on,) walked up and heard him make a rather snide remark about me. At this point I reverted to my good ol' non-confrontational self, as she was getting angry with him, and I left.
Now, they didn't break up. Quite the contrary, they worked out the problem with him being a jerk towards me, and got married. He later invited me to be in his wedding party. I declined as I only do Best Man gigs, (Pfft, yeah right, that was a joke btw =P) but he friend'd me on Facebook and asked if we could meet. I was rather shocked at both of these things. I accepted the meeting, knowing that, since I didn't somehow accidentally destroy his relationship, my ass was safe and sound and kick-immune.
He chose to meet me on the spot where he had last made fun of me... Which was even more re-assuring, since it was an exceptionally public place, and unless his goal was to also humiliate me, there was no way he would risk beating me down for jail-time. I figured I would do the same thing I did last time, just to be sure I wasn't going to get beaten... So I walked up and said hi in the nicest voice I could without sounding girly. Without saying hi back, he began apologizing for his behavior before and in High School... Now instead of smiling and trying to look completely harmless, I just looked like someone had told me I'd won the lottery, or something similar. Dumb-founded.
He said something along the lines of, "The fight you saw me having with my fiancee, well, it was a real wake-up call. You were being perfectly polite and kind and I was being an ass. The only time it's okay to be an ass is when it stands on principle, and when you're sure you won't back down on the subject, and it's important to you." (What he said was so much more elegantly put... I wish I could remember it verbatim...) Apparently the fight I'd accidentally incited caused him and his future wife to have a heart-to-heart about life and what it meant to be an adult. He thanked me for nearly blowing up his relationship, and repeated the offer to be in his wedding party. (In case it wasn't clear, the line above about declining because it wasn't a best-man thing was a total joke. This is where I actually decline the offer.) He said he understood, thanked me again, and went on his way. I haven't heard from him since, though I did receive the official letter inviting me to the wedding. He's been married for several months now, and I, through passivity and genuine, if strained kindness, dealt with my former nemesis...
Just an example of how being blindly optimistic, believing the best about people, and acting upon it can actually change something every once in a while.
As far as online personas go... In case anyone can't tell... I like to type. =P
great post
You will never be able to control how people perceive you because human nature abhors a vacuum and they will fill it with their hopes, dreams, and prejudices that have nothing to do with who you really are.
Well said! True in any mode of life!
Quoting Jafo, reply 16The fast-food relationships which are [is] the internet will always mis-represent and mis-interpret.If one 'hangs out' long enough [and is neither naive nor a moron] one CAN see the real personna. The longer the interaction the clearer the understanding.[I always thought my coming-of-age was when Wiki had me down as an arrogant fascist]....
I smiled at the last line.
LoL! Don't think they were the only ones to think that Jafo.
John....never...
Jafo? That's not a Blue Thunder reference is it?
Dunno why everyone connects 'JAFO' with Blue Thunder.... an Ex O has been refered to as such for yonks.
Not sure if it's any better than 'GIB' [Guy In Back].... but that one's likely from Vietnam vintage as well .....
You're definetly right on this one Brad! And as long as the media has so much power, they can shape our image at will!
[quote who="RikazeMA" reply="36" id="2810469"]
I found out something rather interesting, all caused by an encounter with a... Let's call him an old nemesis.We never got along in High School, he'd pick on me and what-not. I was never the confrontational type, so I just ignored it. /quote]
This brings back memories....I'm also the non-confrontational type. Boy was that a mistake....you must stand up for yourself to have any honor.
Through life, I regret being so wimpy. Should have shown strength!
But they say it's never to late to start....
Just remember: If you don't stand up for yourself, someone will put you down!
It's like gossip in the real world. Good or bad. Mistakes or lies, we got em all......
Thank goodness for people who really know us.
There's been done several studies on internet communication, and the consensus seems to be that of all our forms of communication it is less considerate, more objective, and a bit harsher, than any other. If you want to give a critique of someone's work, do it on email. It's actually the best vehicle for it, both to send and receive. Arguments, however, it's not. People will tend to give, and take, offence much easier. Humor is much more difficult.
As such I am very careful on the internet. I do try to keep the above in mind; I find no value in causing offence, nor do I feel the need to educate complete strangers who may just be joking or exaggerating.
As a case in point, when I was younger I had a long, and exasperating, debate with some guy. After a few weeks of it, I gave him my phone number and said we'd discuss it on the phone instead. Our disagreement was solved in a minute; there was no real disagreement, it was just the way we worded things. Since then we were rather good friends.
Also, as a case in point, that is why it is easier - and far more wrong - to fire someone through Email.
This ties in nicely with what Frogboy said - your online persona will not be judged lightly, but it will be judged. Emails and forums are not the place for making friends; the main reason why it does at all is that forums are usually a place to meet for people with the same interests. I don't need to point out that when the interest is a game, without necessarily being an interest in the same direction (one guy being annoyed at bugs and poking around the forums for some help and grievance venting, while the other guy thinks the game is the best thing ever and want to share that) then you can find arguments very easily.
You know that kinda sense. In that in a community there's a limited amount of people. On the internet there are millions...........
World of Warcraft, when you stop playing they remove all your work from the Armory.com. You did NOTHING for a year. Gone.
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