Since the "launch of my re-branding" a bunch of interesting things have happened that I wanted to capture.
1. I’m making a "manual" move
I’m moving off of http://rebeccalevine.spaces.live.com and moving over completely to http://beckypezely.spaces.live.com. I’m also changing my email (I’m absolutely dreading that: (a) telling everyone my new address and (b) updating all the accounts where I use my old address – this is sadly worse than changing addresses at the post office).
2. I learned that many people around me face the same identity crisis
Not surprisingly, many people have the same naming/identity crisis issues that I have experienced for various reasons. And my story prompted many of my friends to share their own stories about their names. They were all awesome. I didn’t have time to quote/site them all but here is a highlight of some of my favorites:
A friend who was legally named Elizabeth, then nicknamed Betsy and became Becky because her little sister couldn’t pronounce "Becky" correctly. All three names are still "valid".
A friend with a large, Chinese, family made t-shirts for a family vacation. To keep track of all family members, and simplify cultural naming conventions (culturally you are not just "Uncle Rob" but rather "My father’s, mother’s, youngest son, Rob" – or something to that effect) they devised a numeric naming system ordering family members by age. The convention was such that main family member were a number n (example: 1), spouses were n+ (example: 1+), children were n.n (example: 1.1 and 1.2, etc). The numbers were printed on the t-shirts and have since become the names that people use in the family. Now there are conversations that happen like, "1 and 1+ were supposed to go on vacation with 5 and 5+ but 1.1 and 1.3 got sick so 1 and 1+ didn’t go and 4 went instead). I almost didn’t believe this one. I love it! What was even better was how this resonated with a story from my own family.
Karen joked that if I really wanted to re-brand "Microsoft-style" I should have first named myself something else (like "Blue") to get people used to the idea of calling me "Becky". LOL!
There were also several references to MSN vs. Windows Live. 🙂
Greg joked that I could have been more official by having a rude Q and A.
3. I’m having to regain the very little credibility on the Internet and with the Windows Live network
Because my "re-branding" is complete in that I am moving all of my Internet presence from Rebecca Levine to Becky Pezley (as exemplified by this, new, Space), I have lost all connection (as far as the Internet is aware) with Rebecca Levine, who happens to has some credibility in terms of search results that turned up content from my blog, as well as ratings that I had on Expo and QnA. These are all things that I will have to re-build over again. Sigh. This is really sucky and I’ll get over it because, really, I didn’t have any serious Internet street-credibility and that stuff wasn’t that important to me. In principle, it still kinds bugs me though.
4. I’ve lost all my important info associated with my old identity
This one hits me harder (like in the gut wrenching kind of way). I’ve spent a bunch of time trying to salvage all of the content associated with my own identity.
The first issue was migrating all of my Messenger buddies over to my new address. This was a 1-for-1 manual process and it totally sucked doing it. Way tedious! The only cool thing that came out of that effort is that it was really easy to make them a friend on this, new, Space (though a lot of people who were friends on the old Space have not accepted my new request and I feel less complete since they are not yet my friends in my new world; there is also the fear that they take this opportunity to sever their friendship with me).
The same harsh reality played out with my blog. The only thing that brings satisfaction to me in blogging are the comments and reactions that people leave on my Space. I have taken the time to move all of my old blog posts over to my new Space and I’ve lost all the comments that go along with them. I know that Windows Live has the idea of aggregating a bunch of different IDs together such that they are seen as equivalent when logging in so my old Space remains my space no matter how I log in – and that is exactly what I don’t want in this case. In this case I want a complete break, fresh start and yet I want all my old stuff to come with me.
I haven’t even started to begin figuring out how I deal with all of my pictures that are on my old Space. I’m torn between creating a list of links to all my old photo albums on the old Space or moving to a photo service that offers photo feeds and then creating an RSS feed gadget for my Space (which is what I would probably prefer if I can do it).
Even more than that I’m not sure how or if to "decommission" the old Space.
I’m sure some of my friends on the Spaces team might have advice. Let me have it!
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