greenquest

Best intentions

2007-06-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

I started on the latest cyberchase challenge with all the best intentions. Selected my brand - the New Covent Garden Soup Company - probably the "greenest" one available to me; set up my google alerts and watched the daily feeds rush in.

A mass of information - some relevant, some utterly rubbish. I quickly realised the error of my ways - there's a lot of news about Covent Garden, not all of it soup-like.

So I haven't really been able to sift out the important and relevant stuff yet.

But on the flip side, I have now got lots of lovely information coming to me everyday on my real clients.

this blog is made from recycled materials

2007-02-22T15:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not an environmentalist but I care about the environment.

These people do too. Shoes for a happy planet. And happy feet.

frugal flying

2007-02-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

Addicted to travel but wracked with guilt about your big-foot-esque carbon footprint? Never fear, a quick text will do the trick.

Welcome to the environmental equivalent of 3 hail mary's.

virtuous reality

2007-02-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

What drives us to choose the online identities that we do?

The ability to redefine ourselves as someone new - the person we long to be? a way of exploring a different perspective or belief that we wouldn't dare acknowledge in the real world? or perhaps it's just the thrill of no-one quite knowing what sits behind our carefully-chosen characters?

What makes men 3-5 times more likely to choose a female character when online gaming? Surprisingly the ascetic pleasure of playing a girl (aka the Lara Croft - or Black Widow - Syndrome) comes fairly low on the list; apparently cross-dressing gets you get ahead of your rivals... Who knows, as the lines become more and more blurred between the virtual and the real worlds, tactical cross-dressing may spill out into everyday life.

There are as many reasons as there are online personalities, with many of us choosing to explore different viewpoints in different environments. After all, why be a quiet, contemplative soul when you can experiment with being a compulsive Second Life gambler, a 'hack'n'slash' blood elf or tub-thumping nationalist.

And if you're worried about an impending identity crisis juggling all those multiple personalities just head off to the kind people at Profilactic - perhaps in helping you prevent an online identity crisis they're the closest thing you'll find to a digital shrink.

Creating a new online identity is a unique experience - it's not everyday you get to choose who you want to be and how you want to behave. So I've decided to become a digital do-gooder. If you can't save the real world at least you can turn the digital one green.