Open Thinkering

(Digital) bodges and badges

• 1 min read • Open Badges / digital badges / microcredentials

Anyone who grew up in England and who is of a certain age will remember the children’s TV series Bodger & Badger. The latter was rather fond of mashed potato, I seem to remember.

The series came to mind after I prompted GPT-4o to come up with an image “based on our conversations… using an appropriate illustration style.” It came up with this monstrosity, complete with reference to DIGITAL BODGES:

This AI-generated image is an illustrated portrait of a man in a scenic outdoor setting. He stands in the foreground holding a glass with a brown liquid. He has short, dark hair and wears a gray suit jacket over a white shirt. Behind him stretches a lush green landscape with rolling hills and a small village. Various items are depicted around the man: an open book with visible pages, an American football, and a lightbulb. Above him are circular icons including a figure labeled "Profesional Digital," a silhouette labeled "Digital Bodges," a gear marked "Football," and bar charts labeled "Digital Badges."

I know, it’s impossible to un-see, and will haunt your dreams. Sorry. It got the wrong kind of ‘football’ and also there’s a person grasping a hotdog at the top left, but at least it included mountains and whisky 😂

What could we apply the notion of ‘Digital Bodges’ to? It’s too good of a malapropism to ignore. For me, I can imagine badge blunderers making the following cringeworthy mistakes:

  • Confetti Merchant: sprinkling digital badges across all their social media profiles, emails, and even dating apps, in a hope that quantity will overshadow quality.
  • Badge Embellisher: subtly modifying badge titles to make them sound more important — for example “Master Data Scientist” rather than “Participant in Introduction to Data Analysis Workshop.”
  • Irrelevant Oversharer: tries to squeeze their “Advanced Basket Weaving” badge into every professional conversation, regardless of the topic.
  • No Context: flaunting their badges without explanation, leaving everyone wondering what “Level 3 Unicorn Tamer” actually means in a professional setting.
  • Tired/Expired: proudly displaying outdated badges, like a “Microsoft Office 2010 Guru” unaware that technology has moved on.

What would YOU apply the concept of ‘Digital Bodges’ to?