And, also, your digital identity (to me) is T. Just T.

But, finally, what I’m guessing is underlying this identity quest is the impending job market. The scariest realization I had when I approached the market (because I realized it was the thing I had no idea how to answer) was the question of disciplinary positioning. (The flamingo logo actually came before this realization.)

My confusion about how to position myself on the market was due to the fact that, in 2003, there were no “new media” jobs in r/c. Zero. There were two *computers and writing* jobs. The rest were all straight up rhet/comp or tech/comm jobs, neither of which I do exclusively and only some of which had to do with technology. Because I don’t do rhet/comp or tech/comm in any kind of exclusive manner, I had a much more difficult time positioning myself on the market, which is partly why I used the flamingo — to show that I was a “new media” person. (Thank god I ended up with one of those *computers and writing* jobs. And, later, thank god for Illinois State, which allows me to be the not-quite-right academic that I am.)

I have two responses to you, one of which is an expanded repeat from last week:

(1) Do you really want to be known by your logo, for longer than your logo will be academically useful to you?

I loved that flamingo, but it still haunts my academic identity, seven years later. Even though I ditched the flamingo pretty quickly, it was striking and so people remembered it. I also happened to like wearing pink with irony, so “pink” became my new symbol when I ditched the flamingo. (I’m not sure the irony part worked out well for me.) Even now, when I’m not even trying to draw on the pinkness of my identity, I have people in academically powerful places that “know me” by my pink. (Or my purses.) And on the one hand, I’ll never change who I am, even tho I have stopped wearing that same pink sweater all the time. On the other hand, it’s kind of a problem that administrators *only* know me by the pink. While it humanizes me to them, allowing for a level of personal conversation that’s often more awkward than useful, I never intended for “the pink” to be what administrators (for instance) think of when they see me. I’d rather it be my research.

[For the record, omg how conservative have I gotten?! It's been going this way for about two years. The tenure process will beat any quirk out of you, I'm telling ya!]

(2) Like you said above, your research should help you figure out your academic position/identity. And you have fantastic research, so talk it up. Yeah, you could use a logo; it won’t kill you. I guess I’m just saying that what you could do, instead of spending precious job market time creating 17 logos to test out is to pick a job ad you want, and make one of us talk you through it in a mock interview. Nothing, ***NOTHING!!*** prepared me to articulate my position on the job market better than the horrible, horrendous job I did on my first mock interview. That practice will *very quickly* show you how you have to be yourself, which is the perfect identity to be :)

cb

ps: I think I’m going to put you on my CV under “Mentored.” :) lol. Srsly. I think I don’t have any grad students at ISU yet (well, one because I haven’t taught any grad classes since I got here… soon to change!) because I tell it like I see it, and that puts a lot of people off. (As if academia is all shiny happy. Puh-leez. You will need a job. And you’ll get one, if I have anything to do with it :)