me.

A friend of mine recently started a blog.  Along with being a much better writer than I am (argh), she indicated that she would likely anonymize people when she is talking about work.  This is relevant specifically because she is also a co-worker (it means a lot to me that she is willing to share the blog with me in spite of that, btw), but also in a more general sense.  It brings up the issue of the blurry line between who you are in real life, who are you online, and how expressive you are in the latter environment in regards to the former.

I have wrestled with this for some time, and here’s my decision.  I’m pretty sure it won’t hold up in court, but I gotta at least say it.

I am, in fact, Allan Chen.  I currently work at Santa Clara University Law School after about eight years at Stanford.  I am an Assistant Dean, responsible for technology and academic computing.  I work with others at the university extensively, and the relationships I have with Central IT, Media Services, the Library, and a dozen other groups are critical to my ability to do my job.

When you speak to me in person, over the phone, whenever, I am that person.

However, I am also kaiyen (this is a name and online alter ego I’ve used since I started college, by the way).  kaiyen (always lowercase) is not the Assistant Dean of Technology at Santa Clara Law School.  kaiyen is a person (entity?) that thinks, ponders, discusses and, yes, criticizes and sometimes rants about a number of topics.  Sometimes those topics are related to things that this Allan Chen character does.  But that’s because they are experiences that kaiyen uses for intellectual stimulation.  kaiyen doesn’t write about the weaknesses of Novell Groupwise because SCU uses it – Allan just happens to be familiar with it and therefore can help create an informed opinion.  kaiyen advocates for outsourcing and breaking out of the “walled castle” mentality that infects many schools not because that is how SCU operates, but because Allan has worked over a decade in higher education and has come to various conclusions about outsourcing during that time.

So yes, I am Allan, and I’m sure that if I wrote something here that was really derogatory I’d get in trouble.  But as far as I’m concerned, when you read these posts, I’m kaiyen.  kaiyen is informed by Allan’s experiences, but is not bound by the political crap that has thus far given him second thoughts about writing about this or that topic.

I am Allan.  I am kaiyen.  Not the same, yet obviously connected.

And don’t worry, I’m not suffering from dissociative personality disorder – I used the third person for my online persona just for the sake of trying to make the post a bit clearer.