Someday soon your job application or business proposal may get approved or rejected not by what you say, but by a background profile review of your Twitter comments.
Companies are already monitoring blogs and Twitter feeds to catch the chatter about their brands; back in April, when TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington began complaining on Twitter about a down Comcast broadband connection, he got a call from a Comcast executive 20 minutes later offering to fix the problem.
That's a nice story ... but profiling will soon go beyond catching brand complaints to assessing your inner personality. Psychologists at the University of Arizona have found they can accurately predict major personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability by asking students to type their private thoughts for 20 minutes, and then studying the writing. The study methodology mirrors Twitter's input exactly.
Which means what you type today may become your ticket to success or failure tomorrow. Business colleagues, our own Twitter secrets lie here. (Photo: Only Alice)
5 comments:
Wow this is so relevant to me right now! I think the frustrating thing about twitter, facebook, myspace, email, blogs, etc. is that there are all these new ways to communicate with people you would probably have never had contact with in the past - but - you have to censor yourself so much more than ever before! (and look, I'm rhyming) It's so easy to communicate, but you are very limited.
I kicked myself for a blog post about how I thought CP & B was getting too much attention for their BK campaign. I would probably pee my pants if they ever wanted to hire me. But what if they found that post? Would that end up screwing me over in the end?
Very true.
The alternative is to give up self-censorship and be true to yourself, and let it all out for everyone to see and find. Some agencies, even those you criticize, might welcome the chance to work with you if they perceive your comments as constructive. CP&B might think, hmm, this person has guts!
I posted a reference to this on Media Mandible. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have trackbacks enabled.
Thanks, Michael. Unfortunately I am my own IT group on this blog, so I'll have to figure that out!
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