The technology of the secret

Secrets are inherently interesting things. Facts & stories about ourselves that we choose not to share with everyone. I remember one conversation with an acquaintance many years ago where we talked about our secrets. N.B. We didn't tell each other our secrets. We just talked about who we had shared them with. And why. He said: "Well, you are secrets, aren't you?"

Simply hiding something makes it more desirable to others. We may hide it for any number of reasons. It may be shameful, boring, illegal, hurtful. Whatever it is, we don't want people to know about it. We manage & maintain our identities and the exposure of a secret threatens that. Our secrets make us vulnerable. And because they are a part of ourselves that form us that we cannot publicly acknowledge, they can be a heavy burden. Many cultures have developed rituals & roles for the entrustment of secrets to others. The catholic confessional, the psychiatrist's couch.

Secrets (of ourselves & also of others) are powerful tokens of exchange. The secrets of others might be exchanged for material gain but our own secrets are offered to people to build trust between us. We often start with little vulnerabilities and then move on to the bigger things. And in a world where random connections are increasingly common, we sometimes fell happier giving our secrets to complete strangers instead of those close to us.

So why I am writing about secrets?

1. As a knowledge manager, I have been entrusted with secrets - of both groups & individuals. During lessons learned debriefs, participant interviews, all kinds of things. It surprised me when it began happening. I'd flatter myself that it's because I'm a good listener but I suspect it has more to do with the voracious need that people have to unburden themselves. There are fewer priests than there used to be and there is still a stigma (& a cost) attached to seeing a shrink for some people. It's not just knowledge managers - HR people get it to. Anyone who's reasonably sympathetic and without an obvious axe to grind.

Do we need to bring professional secret-keepers back?

2. These new communications technologies - not just the internet but mobile phones & digital cameras - require us to manage our identities in ever more complex ways. And they make our secrets increasingly fragile to exposure. We need some level of privacy, some control over our own identities. But it won't be the same as the forms we've had before. Whether it will be sufficient remains to be seen.