I read a fantastic article today at the Guardian called The gentle art of selling yourself. For anyone concerned with marketing, online or off, with strategy and communications, it’s an article not to be missed.

That was the beginning of my self-invention, but it is not just me. We are all at it. We are all works of art, or, perhaps more accurately, works of architecture with those three essential elements of core, frame and envelope. For the moment, I am most concerned with the envelope. As Machiavelli knew, appearances are real.

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In all of this self-invention, confidence plays a part. The great thing about confidence is that it is self-perpetuating. Get a little and you will soon have some more. It’s a cumulative process; as people respond positively, your confidence builds.

One of the things I’m enjoying thinking about right now is how personal identity is influenced by online relationships and avatars. It seems to me like in this new world of explicit identity creation our tools are back to baby steps in creating, understanding and communicating meaning. Email signatures, voicemail messages, profile photos, bios, blogs, ratings from five stars—all these hints contribute little pieces to our online identity. Yet each feels like such as a small cropped snapshop, out of context from the full picture.

So I guess my favourite part of The gentle art of selling yourself is the re-reminder of how rich a subject we all can be.

And what does this have to do with web marketing? Nothing and everything. You decide. It depends on what you get from the article.

To me it reinforces the long way we have to go in making the online experience richer. And, at the same time, it makes me think that we judge websites just like we judge people—from first impressions, making value judgements that are very hard to later overcome—and that, just like clothes, websites communicate the values of the people who build and run them.

Thanks to Malingering for the photo.