Big Think

Julia Allison: I’m Julia Allison and I’m a New Media personality and journalist.

I started writing for Georgetown’s school newspaper The Hoya. The Hoya had a circulation of, I think, it was maybe 4,000, and, of course, they were online but it was questionable as just like 2002 and I wanted people to be able to read my columns. I had a column there. I realized that the only way to disseminate my, spending most of my time at college writing these columns, and I needed to disseminate them to not only my parents but all of my friends who were spread across the country not to mention people who were outside the Georgetown community especially because I was writing a dating column and Georgetown is a conservative Catholic university. There was a lot of disapproval within the community; and I thought that it should be wider read.

My answer to that was New Media, and it was setting up a website that could be the hub for all of my columns. And then I realized that, in an amazing twist of fate, I didn’t have to deal with editors anymore when I was just writing on my on website; and this for any writer is pretty much the gift of God. And instead of fighting with these 19-year-old editors; by the way, older editors are no better, I learned that later, but instead of fighting with them about not only their extreme prudishness but word count and all sorts of other terrible things, I just wrote on my own website, and that is how I really began in New Media.

Julia Allison: I came to New York to become a journalist. I realized quite quickly that journalism; A) didn’t pay well; and B) there was no necessary guarantee of stability, predictability, security, income. The one way I saw of making a living was to achieve some semblance of prominence to achieve a name recognition or a brand value. And so, I set about achieving that because I thought at the very least I’ll be able to be published.

But what I realized along the way, because I thought the easiest, fastest way of achieving a brand was to utilize New Media; the cost is almost nothing and the reach is almost infinite. So, you really can’t go wrong with it or so I thought.

However, the issue came, well it’s not really an issue. What I quickly realized was that there was infinite potential here; and I didn’t really want to work with editors or within the constraints of a publication when I had infinite bandwidth, and I could write whatever I wanted or express myself creatively however I wanted on my own website.

What I realized is that I was limited by my own time. And I saw Oprah and Oprah’s model. Oprah isn’t just Oprah because she’s one person. She’s Oprah because she has utilized almost an army of people.

When she has to do fashion stuff, she calls in her fashion person. When she does, you know, money stuff, it’s Suze Orman. Life coaching stuff, it’s Martha Beck. Fitness stuff, it’s Bob Greene. It’s not just Oprah up there doing it.

So, I thought what if we do this for New Media? What if, I said to my girlfriends; I had one girlfriend Meghan who is a technology blogger, I said, you come on and whenever we talk about technology, you’re the one talking about technology. And then, there was Mary, she’s a fashion blogger; and I said, you’re the one always dealing with fashion and fitness and style. And so, it was the beginning; NonSociety was the beginning of a New Media, Oprah and friends. That was the goal.

Julia Allison: The answer is my social life is very much affected by technology, but in two ways. There are the detrimental effects, and then there are all of the advantages that come with it too.

I was at Harvard yesterday and I posted a picture of myself sitting at Peet's Coffee; and I said, “If anyone wants to come by and say hello, I’m right here,” and people did. And they came by and said hello and it was sort of neat. I mean it was really neat. I wanted them to do that.

On the other hand, I went in a date later that evening and I specifically asked the fellow not to look me up on the internet. Now, that is like holding up a piece of chocolate in front of a diabetic or something; it’s probably not possible. So, it’s certainly has affected my life personally; and it will continue to affect anyone’s life who do put as much out there as I do.

Julia Allison: The reason personal branding has become such a huge topic and it will continue to be such a huge topic, in fact, I shudder to say this but I believe this is just the beginning, and I do wince at that, even though I have based my career off of personal branding, and I give lectures on this, and I will continue to do so.

The reason personal branding is as prevalent as it is now, and will continue to be so, is because we have the opportunity to brand ourselves personally, whereas before we didn’t. In other words, we can be our own PR company, and we can be our own journalist. Prior to that, the only way we could communicate with the outside world, aside from calling people on the phone, was by either becoming a journalist or by hiring a PR company. The barriers were quite high. And now, it’s so low. My dog has a Twitter, you know, I mean, that’s a new level.

Julia Allison: The reason Wired [Magazine] really put me on the cover is because I am an example of what is about to happen. I am one of Malcolm Gladwell’s early adapters, if you will, to quote a very cliché book at this point. And I’m harnessing new technology in a way that’s; I’m not a computer scientist. I’m not at MIT right now. My little brother is, but I am not.

I’m really in the real world, I’m actually using it to make a living.

I think that Wired loves to be at the cornerstone of when technology hits mainstream, when it hits pop culture, and I’m right there. And I think it made for an interesting cover; and it was the fourth best selling cover of the decade, I’m very proud of that.

Recorded on: Dec 9, 2008.