I was amused to read Rachael King's piece this week in BusinessWeek, What Your Blog Says About You. Rachael reviews a service called Typealyzer that scans your blog, analyzes your writing, and provides feedback about the personality that your blog displays. It even matches your blog personality to a personality to Myers Briggs classification, which breaks people into 16 personality types.
It sounded fun to me, so I decided to give it a whirl. When I take Myers Briggs tests, I typically show-up as an ENTJ. So I went in expecting that result if all went well. Myers-Briggs describes ENTJ as
ENTJ
Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas.
With that in mind, I am ready to go. Typealyze me.
I started with my professional blog at tomgerace.gather.com. This blog contains some recent writing on Gather, social media, and the industry in general. Typealyzer decided I was more of an INTJ (introvert instead of extrovert is that first change). They desribed my blog's personality type as:
INTJ - The Scientists
The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.
The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples. Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.
Ok, close enough, I guess. Perhaps I am a little more careful with what I write on my professional blog than in real life. I mean, careful yes. But introverted? Me? Listen, buddy...
Well, let's clear that up, I thought. Next, I decided to shoot all of my public Gather content through the machine. My personal stuff should balance out the professional writing I do.
Doing this was a little tricky because Typealyzer didn't recognize my profile page tom.gather.com as a blog. Instead, I had to feed a link to the list of all my (public) Gather posts into the machine. Here's what it said about me then:
ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers
The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.
The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.
Now just a doggone minute, mister! That went exactly the WRONG way. Who are you calling a Duty Fulfiller? You might as well call me Fido. Seriously, get me an email address for these Typealyzers. Who do they think they are?
Ok, calm down, Tom. It's probably just not really working right. Let's check out Gather's food group (where I don't contribute because I tend to blow things up in the kitchen). I bet they will think they are kick-around Duty Fulfillers too. I typealyze food.gather.com and find:
ESTP - The Doers
The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.
The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.
Oh sure. They are the fun people. I get it. No really, it's no problem. Everyone likes to be with the food people. They are "exciting and impulsive." Always a good time. Just try and get an honest shake as a start-up CEO these days though.
Ok, ok, maybe it's time to back away from this Typealyzer thing. My three personalities and I really need some time alone with each other to figure this out. When we are done, though, we are going out to party, man. We'll show you who's a Duty Fulfiller.
And you will just wish you could come, Typealyzer.
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Tom Gerace is CEO of Gather.com. To see what he shares with the world, visit tom.gather.com. To see what he shares with his friends, well, buy the guy a cup of coffee and see where it goes.
Tom also blogs about business at tomgerace.gather.com
Tom contributes on Engagement Marketing at engagement.gather.com
He is about to start blogging for iMedia as well, so stay tuned.
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Comments: 37
[ESTJ]
The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they have made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.
The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/rfrisbie
ENTP - The Visionaries
The charming and trend savvy type. They are especially attuned to the big picture and anticipate trends. They often have sophisticated language skills and come across as witty and social. At the end of the day, however, they are pragmatic decision makers and have a good analytical ability.
They enjoy work that lets them use their cleverness, great communication skills and knack for new exciting ventures. They have to look out not to become quitters, since they easily get bored when the creative exciting start-up phase is over.
Can't put too much weight into this test.
www.gather.com/viewPostsByMember.action?memberId=17461&nav=MyGather
but I have a feeling it looked at the page, not at the articles (this is fun!)
Thanks Tom!
ISTP - The Mechanics
The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.
The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.
My sports thing was Realist, but my love one went back to ENTP - The Visionaries
"one of my personalities :-)" does that mean you can have your own group therapy session?
Just kidding, sorta..........
:)
perhaps you should get your personalities over to take that promo quiz Stefanie has up, about which Tudor are you?
my blog did not my match my MB type either.
I typed in my username at Gather and it came up
ESTJ, the guardians, the true organizers.
I think that is because I have 2 major oganizing articles up at the moment.I will try it again another time.
Sometimes I am INFJ...
One of the reasons I posted this to the engagement.gather.com group is that I think it has fascinating implications for company blogs. We are starting one at Gather where Team Gather can share what's going on here with others (we do that well in a formalized way, but I want folks to have time to share their work more one-on-one).
All joking aside, I think the Typealyzer may be useful to companies if they want to evaluate whether the tone of their corporate blog lines-up with their goals for the brand. Is it open and friendly? Is it it technical? Is it authentic or plastic? As companies start to try to talk with their customers, it may help them understand how people are hearing what they are saying.
meatgroup.gather.com comes up as ESTP - The Doers. Same with pessimists.gather.com, marzipan.gather.com and pittsburghnat.gather.com.
wieners.gather.com is ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers, even though I just formed it yesterday and there's no content there (folks, if you've got wiener-related content, fulfill your duty and post it to wieners.gather.com! I promise I'll eventually make it look pretty like the Meat group).
My Drills and Pictures of Towels (don't ask) groups don't return anything. The Typealyzer claims to detect Thai in one of them and the other says "not enough data to detect language".
You are definitely invited to come out with Richard and me. If we get into trouble, it will be good to have The Warrior to back us up.
For the record, your new group name terrifies me. Particularly if it gets a good Google page rank.
"For the record, your new group name terrifies me. Particularly if it gets a good Google page rank."
But isn't any publicity good publicity?
As for any publicity being good publicity...I am not sure the old adage is true.
(Hey, you never know-- Weird Universe managed to find and recognize my Pictures of Towels group...)
Yep. I would say that fits me to a T
Sorry, Tom, Tom and Tom!
That said, the main problem with Myers-Briggs is that it assigns a dualistic either-or designation to what is not only a continuum, but one on which the majority clusters in the middle. The tests that give you a percentage result and chart your position between the extremes are more accurate, I think.
Interesting that you'd wondered if your writing represents you. Perhape the subject of another post?
Just ran some of my posts, and my whole "my posts" page through typealizer as a test. I tried to pick a variety of post topics to see how sensitive it would be to changes in overall topic area. My entire posts page and one post ("Ride evolution") came up as ISTP. Three posts ("Building a microprocessor", "Amateur Fishkeeper", "Okcoasterfest") came up ESTP. One ("Growing up a geek") came up ISTJ. Two ("My Kitten has a first name", "A walk for all seasons") came up ESFP. If I include the results of my prior online test, none of the four dimensions is consistent.
The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they have made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.
The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.
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I particularly respect authority when I AM THAT AUTHORITY!