You have a distinct online identity. An identity built through your interactions with Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and others. This identity knows more about you than your parents do. Your parents know a few of your friends, Facebook knows them all. Your parents know your girlfriend, Google knows everything about her. Your parents might know you went to Vegas last weekend, but Twitter knows everything you did while you were there. (Thank your friends for uploading those pictures…) Your parents know what companies you’ve worked for, LinkedIn knows every colleague you interacted with while in these roles. This might be a little scary to some, but the brave see the potential in this electronic identity to open up a world completely personalized to their needs.

In today’s world, this identity lives entirely online. You open your computer and upload status updates, pictures, and information about yourself to share with friends. When the computer closes or the smartphone is turned off, you leave this identity behind and head into the physical world. But what if this personal identity could be extended into the physical world as well? Let’s think about what a day would look like in this futuristic new world.

Your morning starts with your alarm clock (synced with your Google Calendar) waking you up an hour before your first appointment. As you stumble into the bathroom to take your morning shower, a sequence of events is triggered. First, your coffee pot checks the time of your last Facebook activity from the night before and realizes you only got four hours of sleep. It automatically starts brewing a double dose of dark roast to get you through a rough day. At the same time, a touch screen monitor in the shower loads your schedule, email, and a list of important items due today while simultaneously setting the water temperature to your personal preference of 112 degrees. As you get through your shower, the thermostat, aware that you like the bathroom a toasty 80 degrees when you exit the shower, raises the temperature. Your car, realizing you’ve got to be at work in an hour, begins checking the traffic and construction reports on your route to work. It notices a detour in your route and sends you an email, which you get in the shower, warning you to leave early. As you exit the shower, your closet’s built in weather center checks the weather and learns it is supposed to be a chilly forty degrees today. It automatically rotates the clothing to bring your favorite cold weather attire to the front, keeping in mind your preference for gray suits for client meetings like the one you have today. As you zip your coat, grab your coffee, and head for the car, the smart kitchen checks its inventory versus your standard lineup and automatically places orders for bread and cereal.

Not bad for an hour’s worth of work. And the best part is that this is just a start. As your personal identity continues to grow and more devices gain access to the cloud, there is no limit to the potential customization of the world around us. Imagine every device you interact with being tied to your personal identity and fully customizable to your preferences. Every couch has adjustable lumbar specific to the user. Every TV adjusts volume, brightness, contrast, and content to the user. Windows and fans in every room automatically open and turn on to suit the particular user. Every vehicle adjusts handling characteristics to fit the specific driver. Every restaurant adjusts the menu to fit your culinary preferences. The possibilities are truly endless. So in the end, maybe it’s a good thing that your personal identity is becoming so detailed. I would certainly trust it more than my parents to pick out my clothing for the day.

Managing an online identity has become an increasingly important part of life.  With so many options to connect to the world via cyberspace, we are forced to pick and choose which social platforms to engage with and what exactly to share.  Being part of a particular social network establishes a permanent record of your interactions with that network.  No hiding your past.  That means you better be careful of what you post. 

By now, many of us have heard the urban legend where an employee tweets about his boss and is subsequently fired or where a candidate is not offered a job because of a controversial Facebook photo.  While these stories may or may not be true, employers are definitely Googling candidates and making inferences about that candidate’s personality from the results that appear.  Thus, we are forced to segment our online identities and tailor our profiles accordingly. 

Being aware of the importance of your online identity highlights the complexity of managing it.  Google yourself and see what returns.  You may be surprised to find that short article you wrote back in college turns up in the top five search results.  You may also be surprised that a photo on a friend’s Flickr account is publicly available.   Most of us would like to maintain a sort of professional persona to employers and colleagues while simultaneously sharing personal pictures from travels with friends and family.  How can this “split” identity be maintained? 

Privacy and security issues are a hot topic these days, giving rise to added privacy features on social networks that allow you to control exactly who you share with.  This added flexibility is beneficial but requires a certain amount of thought each time you make a post or upload a photo as you decide what segment of your friend list you entrust with the material.  It can quickly become overwhelming to remember what you posted, where, and to whom. 

However, having an online identity is not all evil.  The internet is often a source of first impressions and thus can be used to shape how we want others to perceive us.  Considering the ease at which web pages can be developed, you can create your own website that broadcasts your interests or highlight only certain work experiences on your LinkedIn profile.  Take, for example, a graduate student with a healthcare background who is now interested in pursuing a full-time position in technology.  By showcasing her thoughts about the latest tech trends in a few blog posts and a personal AboutMe page while “following” tech-related bloggers on Twitter, she is proving her industry commitment to potential employers.

So, just as you pay your bills on time to build a good permanent credit history, use websites and social networks carefully to build an online identity that you are comfortable sharing with the world, permanently.