In the September 2008 edition of my One Life newsletter, I wrote an article titled
Take Control of Your Online Information. I want to highlight one of the paragraphs:
"Be proactive and make it harder for noisy people who have nothing
better to do to harm your career. At the same time, be proactive and
make it easier for employers and friends with good intentions to find
and learn more about you in the way you'd like to be seen."
This is a balancing act that's only moderately difficult to do, but your return on investment will be amazing. Don't act like you don't care about the information that's out there about you! If you don't care, you should. You have no idea how many people "google" or "yahoo search" you. A friend may google you, your boss, a colleague from work, or as I describe in the full article, a prospective employer may be searching all up on you Indiana Jones style. That date you had last night, she's probably googled you already. And if you haven't googled someone you know, you'd be kidding yourself if you said you haven't at least thought about it.
In short: Care about your online identity. Take control over it by creating and monitoring it yourself. If something is wrong or unflattering, research it's source and ask for it to be removed. There use to be a time when we could "hide behind our computer" online. That's becoming less and less the case. Let your online identity work in your favor.
~ Ebony
