All my life, like most of you, I’ve been encouraged to be professional, to hold my tongue, to keep silent when it is best to speak up. After blogging for 4 years, I realize now that professionalism is a lot more than a way to keep people quiet, domesticated, asking for permission. It is a path for the wise to gauge what the best action to take in any given situation is, yet being professional has been taken and given a different meaning. When I tell my child to be a professional, it no longer means just to be respectful…it means knowing when to push the point, to give her opinion as a professional who is valued and respected for what she knows. And, if others do not value that opinion, then one should find another employer, advocate for change or get out.

Is it all so obvious? Maybe it was before the advent of new communication and collaboration technologies, but not anymore. And, that is exactly why it’s so darn wonderful that these new technologies are forcing us to re-examine what is appropriate and what is not!

Elaine Talbert (Talberts TechTalk) cites Anne Mirtschin (On an eJourney with Generation Y):

This post is in response to some of the negativity and complaints about the use of laptops, lack of professional respect and twitter at the recent ACEC08 conference, which has appeared as a thread on one of my mailing lists. When attending the ACEC08 conference, I was guilty both of using my laptop and sending tweets over twitter…The absolute power of interactivity and the use of web2.0 tools should not be blocked. Conference participants do need to be mindful of digital citizenship and potential outcomes of online negativity. The nature of our world, our classroom and professional development is changing.

It reminds me of the time I was podcasting presentations for 800 members of the TCEA TEC-SIG membership–not to mention myself because I can’t remember much when I hear it but if I type and audio-record, well, that’s much more helpful–and the officers of the parent organization got mad at me!

What’s neat, though, is that now, all that’s changed. Now, the very same people who were angry with me are embracing Ning.com as a way to connect people. That people get angry when others use technology they don’t understand, would use if they did understand it or perceived it as “acceptable” is just…plain funny (See? Perspective restores one’s humor).

Clay Shirky points out:

In high-freedom environments, people use social tools for fun. In low-freedom environments they use them for political action.

Source: Clay Shirky Interview.