This is a response to Mat Wright’s recent post in his blog, The Wright Result.

I’ve been using Klout with my personal account, @catherinenovak, for over a year.  The result has been largely reflective of my use of social media – I was heavily involved in 2009, almost inactive in 2010, and have returned to the “industry” if you could call it that, in 2011.  (I agree with Mat that recognized credentials in social media are almost non-existent at this early point in time – more on that in another post).  So yes, I have a large network of influential contacts, and my score has been rising again as I have spend more time online, communicating and being a “thought leader” (man, that strokes my ego, lol).

Being quite happy with what I thought to be an accurate reflection of my influence, I decided to hook my new “work” profile up to Klout and see how far I needed to go to catch up with the “rest of me”, so to speak.  This is where it gets tricky.  It was easy to connect @NetscribeCath on Twitter to Klout, and then it asked if I would like to hook Facebook up as well.  So I thought, “Sure, why not?”  Klout responded with a dialogue box that asked, “Another account is using this profile.  Are you sure you want to merge?”  I went ahead anyway, and sure enough, this bumped my work profile way up.  I didn’t realize that this would disconnect @catherinenovak from Facebook.

Turns out that Facebook can only influence one Klout account at a time!  I have a problem with this, in that my work life and my personal life have a fair degree of overlap.  Many people whom I consider friends are also great business connections, and vice versa.  Why should I have to choose which account gets to connect with Catherine Novak on Facebook?

As Mat mentioned, it’s not “done” to obsess about Klout scores with other social media pros.   We’re supposed to be above that, all the while helping our clients to boost THEIR influence.  So long as our score is above [insert your own "acceptable" threshold here], it really doesn’t matter, right?

Thing is, it does, and it doesn’t.  It’s complicated.  My Klout score stagnated when I  took many months away from this line of work.  However, my base knowledge did not disappear.  Connections made did not go away.  And in the meantime, “newbie” @NetscribeCath brings with her the same knowledge and connections that @CatherineNovak has – they just aren’t showing up online yet.

At best, our Klout score is a snapshot in time – like the display on a digital clock, where what we want is probably a larger set of more “analog” gauges.  The best indication of someone’s influence needs to be viewed over a longer period, and in their offline accomplishments as well.  I believe that both my Klout accounts should be able to share the history that my Facebook account brings with me.  And people who use a Klout score to sum me up in two digits had better look deeper – check my LinkedIn profile, my blog posts, and yes, my Google + record, which won’t be connected to Klout until later this year.  Get to know me.  Take me for coffee.

Personally, I would never make a hiring decision about  someone based solely  their on Klout score, as Amber Naslund has reported on Google +.   I’d take it into account, but it’s very important that we don’t make it an “easy out”.

What’s your take on Klout?  How have you heard of people using it?

Funny what a big step this has felt like.  For 2 1/2 years, I’ve been @wordspring on Twitter, to go along with the business that I have had, writing and then teaching people and consulting about social media.  The information I’d read at the time suggested that I used my “brand” – and Wordspring became very well known in the Vancouver Island community for being me, with my social media hat on.  In fact, up until a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of changing my user name.  How would I receive all the replies sent to @wordspring?

However, the time is right.  First, I took a very long break from social media work altogether.  My blog fell asleep, my tweets dwindled to practically nothing, and I rarely looked at my Wordspring page on Facebook.  Now that I’m back in the field, I’m working for other companies, rather than trying to run my own business.  My Wordspring “brand” is less important.  And being myself is far more important!  Since I have Twitter accounts for the places where I work, I can use my personal account for personal purposes.  Seems like something I should put my name to.

I’m glad to say that I’ve been in the social media “scene” in BC long enough for people to see beyond the Wordspring brand to the Catherine Novak behind it.  What’s more, I have always used some semblance of my own face as my profile picture.  So I should  not have too much trouble with losing people due to lack of recognition. Besides, I’ll be unfollowing a lot of people/brands/spammers that don’t have a personal relationship with me or give me great information. My personal account has long had a stream that goes by way too fast for me to make much sense of it.

Then at work, I’ll follow people and develop a following more based on the activities that I do at work.  You can find me already at @gowestgroup, and I just started tweeting as @NetscribeCath today.  Follow me in both places if you think I have something of value to say.  And friends, I am funnier, more irreverent and risk taking after hours than I am at work.  But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Netscribe's "Twavel" app

Tomorrow is my second “official” day at Netscribe Web Communications.  I think I said on Twitter earlier that I’m doing happy dances on the inside.  Between Netscribe and my work with Melinda Harris at Go West Design Group, that puts me firmly back in the land of social media/interactive web.

I think my favourite aspect of this turn of events is that I actually have worked at Netscribe already – five years ago.  At that time, I was newly back into the full-time work force, having spent 8 years mostly with very small children, though I always kept a bit of contract writing work on the side.  Netscribe was a much smaller company a few years ago, and I was on contract.  So at some point we gave each other hugs and kisses, and I went to seek my fortune elsewhere… and where I went in the meantime is a whole other story that doesn’t matter much right now.

Jump to 2011 – Netscribe is a thriving web apps firm, bursting at the seams with desks, computers and smart staff.  And Steve and Stella were looking for a social media person.  They managed to track me down at Social Media Camp Victoria, and I feel like we just picked up where we left off.

I’ll be doing writing, social media consulting and training work for clients in government, as well as managing the social media for Netscribe itself.  I guess I’ll have to set up a Twitter account for me with my Netscribe hat on – it’ll be very transparently me at the keys though.  Should I change my user name from Wordspring to NetscribeCath?