Henry, pondering the breach. Click for one of the more famous speeches from Henry V.
Confounded Base
First, a note: You are not required to set up a social media account for this course. Read the Pareto Project guide and previous posts carefully, and you’ll see only the suggestion that using social media will give weight to your work. That’s why we cite Paul Graham’s “golden age of the essay” and stress the need for more than a teacher’s red pen and score. Your work needs to matter, and the Internet lets you reach an audience beyond our classroom.
The Internet is also, as those previous posts and guides explain, where you will live and work in your professional future. When you apply for college, those institutions will use Google to search for your name. They will scour social media sites. They will uncover any footprint you’ve left online.
Which is why your assignment today is to search Google for that footprint. Search your full name. What pops up? Visit any accounts you have that aren’t private, and look at them like a stranger would. What do you see?
Take today’s period to describe what is already out there about you, and then write about what you want to be out there. What sort of student do you hope colleges (and then prospective employers) find when they look for you? What footprint have you created?
This thought exercise is why part of the Pareto Project is publishing through Medium. On January 3, you’ll write the first essay documenting your process, and you will be strongly encouraged to craft that essay in a way that lends itself to Medium’s architecture and format. Again, you are not required to do this, nor to have a Medium account at all; nor is there some secret expectation built into this quarter’s grade abatement profiles. Instead, the hope is that you see the value in using Medium to create a portfolio of insightful reflection, narration, exposition, etc.
Many of you will also have multimedia elements to publish and share, from videos to comics to podcasts. You should consider which sites best fit those elements. Then you should consider which audiences best fit those elements.
Which brings us to Twitter. There are few better ways to publicize work, and almost no social media appears more future-proof. Once again, you are not required to use Twitter. Many folks get by just fine in life without a Twitter account. But you should not demonize it. You should not assume that it has no educational or vocational value. Used properly, it is among the best ways to establish a digital presence.
After you’ve written something significant about your current online footprint and what you want that footprint will be in the future, spend some time exploring Medium and Twitter. Find professionals you admire or hope to emulate, and observe their footprint. What do politicians write about on Medium? How do writers interact with others on Twitter? Do artists post pictures directly to Twitter, or do they link to another account online?
Take whatever you learn from this exploration, and commit it to writing. Be thoughtful. Make this a good piece of evidence of those essential skills and traits. And ask questions below, if you have them. Interacting with me, here, is as important as anything else.