If you search my name, Claire Guiot, you’ll mostly find me. Aside from a French actress with a slightly different spelling, what appears online is overwhelmingly my digital identity.
That’s the advantage (and responsibility) of having a relatively unique name. My search results form a tight, highly visible snapshot of who I am, which means the content attached to my name carries weight. As Danah Boyd (2010) discusses, these “digital bits” about me are both persistent and searchable, affordances that can be pros or cons depending on the context.
Some of these search results are from content that I posted online and some were published by other people. Together, they form a fragmented, unintentional public record. It’s the visible portion of my “datafied self” (Rowland & Estevens, 2024) where algorithms curate a profile of me based on digital bits or traces that exist mostly beyond my direct control.
This blog post audits my current digital presence across platforms where I represent both myself and others, with the goal of understanding how my professional identity is constructed, where it is fragmented, and what tensions exist within it.
Mapping My Current Digital Presence
To better understand my online identity, I’ve divided my presence into two categories: spaces where I represent myself and spaces where I represent others. Digital traces of me published by others are beyond my control, but the content is also benign.
Where I Represent Myself
| Topic | Platform | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching | claireguiot.com, MALAT blog | Developing a more intentional voice in educational leadership |
| Teaching | Medium articles, LinkedIn profile | Inconsistent attempts to engage in online community |
| Design | claireguiot.com | Core professional portfolio for freelance graphic and UX design work |
| Design | coroflot.com, behance.com | Third-party portfolio websites with old content |
| Art/Hobbies | Informal sharing of art projects with the creative community (no personal info shared) | |
| Personal Life | Private groups (e.g., WhatsApp) | Deliberately limited and controlled |
| Personal Life | Some personal posts shared publicly over the last 20 years. Nothing damaging but still public and personal. |
I have historically been more of a social media observer than an active contributor, participating inconsistently and intentionally limiting the visibility of my private life. In this sense, I’ve primarily taken a “Visitor” approach (Le Cornu & White, 2011), using the web as a tool for specific purposes without leaving much of a digital presence behind.
Two years ago, I committed to reflecting on my career with the goal of making some intentional changes. From this process, I decided to complete a graduate program and began developing a teaching portfolio website to consolidate my work and articulate a clearer academic voice.
This reflection has required me to more actively consider how I appear online. My site, claireguiot.com, serves as both a teaching and design portfolio and represents a move toward a more “Resident” mode of engagement (Le Cornu & White, 2011), where my professional digital identity is more intentional. While my personal presence remains limited, my professional identity is increasingly public, though still evolving and in need of further curation.
Where I Represent Others
| Topic | Platform | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Client Work | Various websites | Public-facing, but not attributed to me |
| North Island College Department | Facebook, Instagram, learndigital.dev | Collaborative, institutional voice. Sometimes posts feature me or my name. |
I have designed and developed numerous client websites, yet my authorship is largely invisible. Similarly, my contributions to social media are often tied to organizations rather than my individual identity. This significant portion of my work exists online but is not publicly connected to my name so it does not meaningfully contribute to my digital identity.
Gaps and Tensions in My Digital Identity/Digital Presence
This audit reveals several key gaps:
- Limited professional networking presence: While I have been working to establish a clearer professional voice through my personal website, this remains largely a one-way channel for publishing content. I do not actively participate in discussions across platforms, and I do not currently maintain an active LinkedIn profile, leaving a gap in a widely used professional network.
- Invisible authorship: Much of my client work is publicly accessible but not clearly connected to my identity, making my contribution less visible than the work itself.
- Limited open educational contributions: Despite having substantial teaching materials to share, I have not contributed significantly to open educational resources. My main attempt has been a small collection of Medium articles intended as student readings in a flipped classroom context.
Ownership and Authorship Tension
One of the most complex tensions relates to ownership and authorship. Since the shift to online learning, my teaching has generated a large collection of tangible digital materials including video lectures, written articles, documented assignment instructions and rubrics. At North Island College, institutional policies indicate that materials developed using institutional resources and time belong to the College. I’m unclear whether the articles I have published under my name on Medium.com are the property of the College or not.
This raises important questions about how I can share my expertise publicly while navigating institutional boundaries. It also complicates how I represent myself as both an individual thinker and a member of an organization.
Curating My Digital Identity
Overall, my digital presence is partially cohesive but uneven.
My personal website is becoming a central, intentional representation of my professional identity, bringing together my work in design and education. However, other aspects of my presence remain fragmented, underdeveloped, or invisible. There is a disconnect between the volume and quality of my work and what is actually visible or attributed to me online.
Emerging Questions:
This audit highlights several areas that require further consideration:
- How might I make my client’s work more visible
- How could I contribute more effectively to professional online communities without creating too much work for myself.
- How do this MALAT blog and claireguiot.com support each other?
- How can I navigate institutional ownership while contributing to open educational resources?
- Should I completely hide any vestigial traces of my personal life?
Next Steps:
- Complete and strengthen the design portfolio on claireguiot.com.
- Remove one third-party portfolio (Coroflot) and update the other (Behance).
- Identify and begin contributing to relevant professional communities (potentially through syndicated content).
- Review NIC policies to clarify intellectual property considerations.
- Assess whether making my personal Facebook profile private impacts its professional use.
Measures of success:
I will revisit this audit in one year to assess progress. Success will mean having a more cohesive and visible professional presence, with claireguiot.com functioning as a clear central hub. It will also mean establishing a sustainable level of engagement in professional communities—active enough to feel like a contributing member and to enhance my profile, but not so demanding that it becomes difficult to maintain.
References
Boyd, D. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), Networked self: Identity, community, and culture on social network sites (pp. 39–58).
Rowland, J., & Estevens, J. (2024). “What Is Your Digital Identity?” Unpacking Users’ Understandings of An Evolving Concept in Datafied Societies. Media Culture & Society, 47(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437241282240
White, D. S., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i9.3171
Footnote: AI was used to improve the language in the final draft of this reflection. All ideas are authentically mine.
Hi Claire,
I liked reading your post and your thought process. Reading your post made me realize something I actually forgot to include in my own plan: I used to have a personal website as well. At the time, the image I curated there was of a creative and resourceful teacher (which I believe I was). You know, someone adaptable, innovative, and actively engaged in their practice. I decided to delete my website because I felt it was becoming fragmented or outdated since I was not able to maintain it, or connect it to my evolving work. Your approach feels much more strategic and sustainable.
Similar to you, I was a teacher for 30 years, and in the last 15 years of my career, most of the material I created was online, authored by me, but belonging to the institution I worked at, so not actually “mine.” Interesting to ask myself: where does my digital identity lie in this case?
You make good points, especially the one about the disconnect between the volume of your work and what is visibly attributed to you.
Hi Claire,
I just wanted to let you know that I admire your easy to read charts that you embedded in your plan. I think they add a fantastic visual of what you are talking about, and really make it clear for your reader to understand. I hope to be able to find the time to create some of these types of graphics in my future blog posts. I just wanted to say that your blog is a bit of an inspiration for me in terms of readability and design, and I really enjoyed reading it and look forward to seeing more of your posts.
Hi Claire,
It’s an interesting point you have made around authorship within a digital presence. In previous roles I have had, I have found it far easier to post publicly through the organizational accounts, because it wasn’t specifically attributed to me. Whether that was through social media, newsletters, developing resources, or grant applications, I have found that it helps me build confidence from being somewhat anonymous and seeing how people react to what was shared. But that limitation of attribution is something that won’t be much of a factor in my digital presence.
Within your plan, I think the step of reviewing policies is a great place to clarify those issues of authorship and ownership.