One of my most valuable traits and biggest character flaws (yep, you heard right) is my brutal, unwavering honesty, especially about myself. For the life of me I just cannot put on a front, I’m horrible at lying, and I live in the land of wearing my heart on my sleeve. Okay, that last bit is slightly overdone, as there’s much more to it than that, but it’s the easiest way to put it.

Unsurprisingly, this honesty shines through in the way I behave online. Rarely do I take people to task or dig into others, though; my honesty is most obvious in my distinct inability to filter my depressive moments. So maybe we shouldn’t call it honesty so much as a lack of emotional filtering. Maybe. Semantics. Anyway. If I’m feeling crappy, if I’ve had a bad day, if I want to go cry in the corner, well, I say it. Openly. And people sometimes respond, and sometimes they don’t, but it’s out there for folks to see and do with what they will.

When I did all this onliney stuff for myself, this habit wasn’t so much of an issue. But, as it says in my bio over there on the right, I work for a SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING TECHNOLOGY company, so I’m all over this place like a pre-teen on Justin Bieber. But in a professional way. At this point in my life, the personal and professional lines of my online interactions are as blurry as they’ve ever been for me, and some of my habits that have previously been accepted without question are now biting me in the tukhus, most noticeably this painful honesty bit.

In thinking about how to handle this issue I started tossing around the idea of cutting down my Twitter following. The more I read and see going on around me, the more I want to speak up and grab someone’s attention, be part of the fray, dispel the feeling that I’m on the outside looking in. Yes, I’m working on this. But do you see the logic here? The less noise and fray to get caught up in, the less I’ll want to toss myself in the ring haphazardly; the more focused my attention is, the more focused and valuable my participation will be.

So, as this idea of cutting back my following was planting its stakes in the forefront of my mind I learned that Tamsen McMahon, a woman I greatly respect, had recently gone through the business of significantly cutting down her Twitter stream, inspired by the flawless tweets and Twitter management of the inimitable Meg Fowler.

We ladies got to chatting and the reason Tamsen whittled her following so drastically, and why Meg has always kept her following relatively small, can be summed up in one word: Value. And that’s just it. We, collectively, have to be able to absorb value to provide value. We need to be inspired to provide inspiration. See what I’m saying?

So much of my Twitter stream is filled with folks I followed back when I was just starting down this crazy road, more than a year and a half ago. That’s a long time in the digital world, and so much has changed both for me and for my followers. Hell, when I take a moment to poke around a bit I usually find those folks aren’t following me anymore anyway. Why continue the non-relationship? If we aren’t talking with one another, if we aren’t clicking on each others’ junk, what’s the point?

Look, I understand etiquette and I know there are more than a few people out there who will tell me this sort of culling is rude and self serving. But you know what? It’s not just about me. If cutting back is what it takes for me to provide real value to you, dear follower, then would you advocate it? If focusing my attention on fewer people means I can share better content and have more interesting and useful conversations with folks, then would you be okay with it? If doing this means I can truly be as professional as you need me to be, would you accept the possible cut?

There’s so much more to this conversation — especially the exploration of being honest with ourselves in this space, and finding the strength to behave in ways that are the most useful to us and to our friends and acquaintances online — but let’s stop here. What say you on on cutting down your Twitter following? In a bigger context, how do you feel about cutting down all your online networks? Is it time to take a step back and hone in on what really works for you? Or are you gaining value from having a large network to check in on? Share your thoughts with me, please.

Note: I’ve given the Twitter list thing a shot and, early on, find it redundant, but I’m going to try it for the rest of this week to see if I can’t make it work before taking my Twitter stream apart.

So, I suck. Here’s a vlog to make things better. Because you have no choice but to forgive me for my lack of writing after you see all my fun facial expressions and nostril flares and even hear me swear. Only once. I promise. At the very end. Take a deep breath, it’ll be fine…

Rambling from Teresa Basich on Vimeo.

It’s been way too long since I last put the virtual pen to paper over here, and I think my mini-hiatus is up because I’ve had a bit of inspiration (and I owe you guys anyway). Gini Dietrich — entrepreneur, businesswoman, and someone I greatly respect — ruffled a few feathers on her blog last week by claiming that people shouldn’t wear jeans for professional speaking gigs. Her argument is that in her profession — our profession, really, and that would be the digital/social media/social business one — people complain about not having a seat at the boardroom table, but dress as if they don’t deserve that seat.

My response to her was that attire is dictated by corporate culture, and it can appear to be a misrepresentation of your company if you’re presenting in a business suit when your organization has a casual culture (or vice versa). There’s also a certain intimidation factor that comes with business suits, and I think it’s important to be aware of those deeper emotional ties we all have to dress code.

Gini’s post got my mind spinning a bit, because I do believe in the clothes making the (wo)man, so to speak, but to what degree are we weighing someone’s appearance against their professional acumen and knowledge?

How do we define what a professional should look like anymore? Is wearing jeans taken to be disrespectful in a professional setting? Or does a bit of dressing down invite more conversation and connection? Is a company less successful because its corporate culture is more casual? And if the way I dress doesn’t affect your perception as to the value of the content I provide, where does the inappropriateness lie?

In that unreasonably long list of questions, I think there are two that really need hashing out: Is wearing jeans taken as a sign of disrespect in a business setting? And, if the way I dress doesn’t necessarily affect your perception of the value of the content I present, where does the inappropriateness of my jeans lie?

In a larger sense, what impressions are we trying to make these days by dressing “down” in the business world, and where does the value truly lie in dressing up? How shallow are we, and is that “shallowness” not that shallow after all?

Respect — Self and/or Otherwise

Gini and I took the conversation to Twitter and she asserted that her point was purely her opinion about the inappropriateness of jeans in the business world, not about clothes being a reflection of someone’s expertise or that jeans are a deal breaker for doing business.

My interpretation of the purity of her stance is that jeans are inappropriate because they demonstrate a casualness toward business and toward our professional colleagues and peers that could be seen as disrespectful, especially in a setting, like speaking, in which you’re acting as a teacher or mentor.

In another sense, dressing down could also be seen as a lack of self-respect, as if you don’t take yourself or your position within your organization seriously.

Defining “Appropriate”

If we toss the respect part of this equation out of the picture — if jeans aren’t a sign of disrespect — what defines appropriate business attire, then? Content, hopefully, is the real selling point of a presentation, and if that’s true, too, then we’re really stuck. What the hell is appropriate?

Historically speaking, white-collar business has always been a formal affair — suits, boardrooms, golf courses. But that tradition has also created a sense of exclusivity in business that makes people (executives, namely) appear inaccessible. The men in suits are the brain trust, and the rest of us are just the cogs that put their ideas into action. They ideate; we execute. There’s distinct a split there between business functions.

But with the shifts in our economy, the increasing openness of communication, the maturing of a younger generation that’s pushing the envelope of traditional business, and the push for hyper-connectivity all playing together, there are times the formality of old business almost feels inappropriate. As if tradition is standing in the way of progress.

What Are We Trying to Prove?

At the end of the day, what are we trying to prove by dressing up — or down? What impression are we trying to leave? And do we have real proof that the impression we want to leave is actually the impression people are taking home with them? I think we need to look at these questions from both sides.

In my world, the clothes make the initial impression of a man, but the work he does seals the deal. Sometimes the best gifts are wrapped in the plainest of paper. Does that mean a suit doesn’t help his cause? As is true with most things in life: It depends.

Lest you think an argument of this sort is overly superficial, there are much bigger sociological implications and questions floating around under the surface here. I haven’t grasped onto all of them yet, but maybe we can dig them out here.

What’s your take? Are jeans inappropriate attire for a speaking engagement? How do you feel about this slow shift into a more casual business climate? Is the tradition of formal business attire a tradition worth keeping, or are the underlying implications attached to that kind of formality holding us back?