A Policy of Truthiness

Things I’ve learned lately: appar­ently, the internet likes breasts. Who knew?

When I posted my Get­ting Naked entry a few weeks ago, my web­site traffic spiked impressively.

Look! It sort of forms a boob shape, too!

I’ll admit, I was a touch nervous about pub­li­cizing my extra­cur­ricular activ­ities, for a second, for fear of neg­ative back­lash. North Amer­icans in par­tic­ular can be par­tic­u­larly prudish about nudity in all its forms, artistic or oth­er­wise, and where this is, in theory, a Busi­ness Web­site, it did cross my mind that some may con­sider it unpro­fes­sional to dis­cuss such things.

These days, the line between A Busi­ness and That Busi­ness’ Owner is becoming blur­rier and blur­rier. More and more people are freel­an­cing or run­ning sole pro­pri­et­or­ships, and the ubi­quit­ous­ness of Face­book, Twitter, and Google means that, whether we like it or not, we are all bec0ming more and more pub­licly access­ible. I see there being two ways of approaching this, whether you’re a busi­ness owner, career-minded pro­fes­sional, or vag­a­bond with an iPhone.

You can always take the para­noid route, put­ting lock and key on your various internet going-ons, mon­it­oring your activ­ities, and keeping everything gen­er­ally as hush-hush as possible.

Two great recording artists. This is not my photo, though I do have it framed in my living room.

Or, you can choose to accept the omni­po­tence of the internet, and you can embrace your public (even if it’s just your mom).

Years ago, I made a con­scious decision to opt for a policy of truth and trans­par­ency. Accord­ingly, a great deal of my life is doc­u­mented online, and I’m not par­tic­u­larly shy about any­thing. Above and beyond any­thing else, it’s a great deal easier when you don’t need to worry about main­taining two per­sonas (some­times it’s enough work main­taining the one!)

I’m lucky that, being in a cre­ative field, most people view all my unusual and wild beha­viour as charm­ingly eccentric. I’m allowed to be a little left-of-centre because I’m con­sidered an “artist”, whereas a lawyer or an accountant might not enjoy such laxity. In fact, some of my most inter­esting con­tracts have come about through people who’ve appre­ci­ated the more unorthodox pieces in my port­folio (the poster that fea­tured a man’s naked ass, from my days in col­lege, being par­tic­u­larly pop­ular). Being upfront about who I am, and refusing to apo­lo­gize for any­thing, has actu­ally drawn to me the exact sort of cli­ents I like best—the slightly mad, the eccent­rics, and the people who’ll let me do fun work.

It’s primarily for this reason that I advocate total trans­par­ency to everyone—lawyer or artist, banker or baker. Thanks in part to the rise of social media and the increased imme­diacy of com­mu­nic­a­tion between cus­tomer and com­pany, more and more busi­nesses are adopting open-doors policies. Embra­cing truth­ful­ness is far sim­pler than nav­ig­ating a com­plex PR junket, and car­ries with it the added bonus of allowing your cli­ents to develop a nat­ural sense of trust in you, both as a pro­fes­sional and as a person.

This is why I now tell sole pro­pri­etors to use “I” instead of “we” in their advert­ising copy. Or to start writing a blog, even if it’s only to chron­icle the ups and downs of day-to-day oper­a­tions. Make use of social media, and stop wor­rying that the CIA or your boss will look up your Face­book pro­file. (I mean, they will, or at least your boss will. The CIA will prob­ably only look you up if you’ve taken to stealing other people’s chil­dren or burying bodies in your base­ment or cheating on your taxes. I mean that you should either stop caring, or stop pub­li­cizing your dirty secrets.)

My car­dinal rule goes like so: assume that everything you put on the internet will appear on a bill­board in your town with your name in six foot tall let­tering, and if you’re not com­fort­able with that, for the love of god, don’t put it on the internet. Simple, but effective!

It’s pos­sible that, the more of your­self you’re willing to expose to the cal­cu­lating, judging eyes of the public, the more likely they are to dis­miss you as a deviant, a freak, or just a creature that doesn’t jive with their own per­sonal value set. But, in a cul­ture that’s flooded with so many dif­ferent people and ideas, realize that you can afford to offend a few people here and there.

If nothing else, at least they’re sure to remember you.

Tags: business, diatribes, life