@jbruin is Jennifer Van Grove

As a birthday present to me, I made some executive decisions about my personal brand; I decided to stop pretending that my online identity is anything but a mess. I happen to be amazing at what I do – I’m passionate about community centric web strategy, so my work is infused with a very tangible enthusiasm for inspiring conversations that matter. The problem is that I’m a complex woman with interests beyond the professional realm, and I was trying to keep the professional me separate from the frivolous and flirty me. Both of my personas are alive and living in the digital world. Inside the Rabbit Hole was my professional blog for conversations about social media, online communities, web applications, and technology in general. Content Dynasty was my personal blog for no holds barred discussions about relationships, dating, and, the unavoidable, sex.

I tried to separate my online identities for several reasons, none of which are invalid, but Google had a different idea. Although my last name was only tied to one or two websites, Google was able to connect the dots. Google Jennifer Van Grove and you’ll find a variety of information, but you’ll definitely happen upon Content Dynasty, which is what I was trying to prevent. Instead of fighting the inevitable, I’ve decided to embrace my disparate identities and stop hiding what really isn’t hidden. I’m not going to merge the content of both blogs because I do know that some of my professional contacts have no interest in my little sex blog and vice versa. I will, however, keep everything under the umbrella that is JenniferVanGrove.com. Although the blog content you’ll find here is strictly professional, you’ll now be able to easily access all of the Content Dynasty goodness from the navigation, and of course both feeds will still bleed into FriendFeed and Twitter.

My redesigned digital identity, JenniferVanGrove.com, was a week long process that I will document in a very detailed blog post coming later this week. I’ll describe my transition from a hosted WordPress blog to a self-hosted WordPress install with all the plug-ins that I have been craving for months. I’ll share everything from the themes I installed to the ftp browser I’m now in love with. For now, I want to give special thanks to Enrique Gutierrez who generously created the header image [which I LOVE even though a few people think I look a litte b*tchy] you see above.

Now that my let pet project is almost complete, you can expect more quality content on a regular basis. I’ve been buried in work and unable to even breathe for about 2 weeks – hence the relative silence. My brain has been actively storing a plethora of interesting blog ideas that my fingers are itching to make come to fruition. I hope you’ll stick around and forgive me for my absence. If you’re a subscriber to Inside the Rabbit-Hole, you’ll want to update your feed with the new one as that feed will be invalid and the url will be redirected here sometime late next week. The same goes for Content Dynasty, you’ll need to update your feed to get all of that other stuff too.

Let me know what you think of my new look.

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