If you use the internet, chances are you already have an online trail. Don’t hide it—it’s better to manage your digital image so that people get the information you want them to find.
As the saying goes, on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog. In fact, for most netizens this is probably the best part of being in the virtual world. Losing yourself in the folds of trillion-odd pages is a very comforting idea. Shed an identity and don a brand new one, in a jiffy. Great, right? But hang on, have you googled yourself recently? “The last time I did it, I found a whopping 41,300 entries,” says Amit Malhotra, a marketing professional from Mumbai, “Not all of them were about me of course, but a fairly large amount of pages were dedicated to me, and that’s when I realized that there is no hiding on the internet.” So lets face it. Privacy on the internet has become a myth now. With data mining, search engines sending out trawlers and other crawling mechanisms adding pictures to connect the dots, just by logging on to the internet you have already done away with much of your “privacy” anyway. Whether you like it or not, if people are even slightly tech savvy, no matter how they come across your name—be it from a friend, a postcard, business card or email—the first step many people are going to take is go home and google you. So that means, if you are a marketing professional, your would-be clients probably already google you. If you are looking for a job, your prospective employers do the same. And if you are want to get married, that sweet girl you met is doing it too. “Earlier, when it was the paper trail, the piece of paper was all you could see,” says Raghu Raman, CEO, Mahindra Special Services Group. “With an electronic document, there’s potentially a lot more there which can be traced. And it’s not just from blogs or forums—the digital trail can also be traced from your emails and even documents you use such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint.” Which means that the internet certainly makes us vulnerable in a way we have never been before. Should you be scared? Well probably not, because it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Malhotra insists that this might in fact be a good thing. “If people know information about you, they are likely to trust you more. So after I found out how powerful this medium could be at building relationships in real life, I have started taking my online identity very seriously.” How would this help, you ask? Well, say for instance, the same would-be clients were to google you and find that you have many other satisfied clients who have commented on your blogs, then getting the project might be easier. Your employer might find some interesting write-up on your company profile mentioning you, which might give you an edge. Similarly, if you were considering an arranged marriage, and you stumble upon a prospective groom’s profile on a social network and find that his friends think he is a warm person, it’s likely this would make you more comfortable. So instead of trying to erase your identity from the way, a better way of managing your digital trail is to make sure you’re giving people the information you want them to find. In fact you should try to groom your digital identity and show it off even. The first step at starting to manage your digital identity is of course googling yourself and checking what are the first few links that the search engine throws up on you. If you don’t like what you see there, don’t worry, you can fix it. Say for instance, the first link the search engine throws up is a picture taken at the last office party where you were sloshed crazy and doing bhangda, which you are most ashamed of. Here is what you do: Simply log on to some picture sites and upload a lot of flattering pictures of yourself—this way the party picture will get buried deep down in the results. To start grooming your reputation online, start a blog, even if it’s just a few pages worth. Have colleagues suggest you for wikipedia or make sure you are represented on http://www.Squidoo.com or write an article for sites like http://www.OhMyNews.com or http://www.ChangeThis.com . Then of course there are the social networking pages that give you the freedom to portray yourself in a flattering light. Try posting things that you would like the world to see. If you are feeling stretched thin by trying to deal with so many different profiles, log on to programs like http://www.Ziki.com, http://www.Wink.com, http://www.Rapleaf.com and http://www.Spock. com. They offer you an opportunity to reclaim editorial control on how your identity is constructed and represented online. Basically, these sites are aimed to become the central clearing house for all information about you on the internet. This can be like your own private wikipedia entry. You could begin with creating your profile into one of these sites, and then you add your feeds to your profile. You can pull any RSS feeds you currently publish and sites like Ziki will compile them together into an up-to-the-minute round-up of your own verbiage. Throw into the mix links to your profiles on other sites such as http://www.linkedin.com/, http://www.eBay.com, http://www.Amazon.com and others and this should help you create a fairly comprehensive profile of your online presence.
As the saying goes, on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog. In fact, for most netizens this is probably the best part of being in the virtual world. Losing yourself in the folds of trillion-odd pages is a very comforting idea. Shed an identity and don a brand new one, in a jiffy. Great, right? But hang on, have you googled yourself recently? “The last time I did it, I found a whopping 41,300 entries,” says Amit Malhotra, a marketing professional from Mumbai, “Not all of them were about me of course, but a fairly large amount of pages were dedicated to me, and that’s when I realized that there is no hiding on the internet.” So lets face it. Privacy on the internet has become a myth now. With data mining, search engines sending out trawlers and other crawling mechanisms adding pictures to connect the dots, just by logging on to the internet you have already done away with much of your “privacy” anyway. Whether you like it or not, if people are even slightly tech savvy, no matter how they come across your name—be it from a friend, a postcard, business card or email—the first step many people are going to take is go home and google you. So that means, if you are a marketing professional, your would-be clients probably already google you. If you are looking for a job, your prospective employers do the same. And if you are want to get married, that sweet girl you met is doing it too. “Earlier, when it was the paper trail, the piece of paper was all you could see,” says Raghu Raman, CEO, Mahindra Special Services Group. “With an electronic document, there’s potentially a lot more there which can be traced. And it’s not just from blogs or forums—the digital trail can also be traced from your emails and even documents you use such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint.” Which means that the internet certainly makes us vulnerable in a way we have never been before. Should you be scared? Well probably not, because it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Malhotra insists that this might in fact be a good thing. “If people know information about you, they are likely to trust you more. So after I found out how powerful this medium could be at building relationships in real life, I have started taking my online identity very seriously.” How would this help, you ask? Well, say for instance, the same would-be clients were to google you and find that you have many other satisfied clients who have commented on your blogs, then getting the project might be easier. Your employer might find some interesting write-up on your company profile mentioning you, which might give you an edge. Similarly, if you were considering an arranged marriage, and you stumble upon a prospective groom’s profile on a social network and find that his friends think he is a warm person, it’s likely this would make you more comfortable. So instead of trying to erase your identity from the way, a better way of managing your digital trail is to make sure you’re giving people the information you want them to find. In fact you should try to groom your digital identity and show it off even. The first step at starting to manage your digital identity is of course googling yourself and checking what are the first few links that the search engine throws up on you. If you don’t like what you see there, don’t worry, you can fix it. Say for instance, the first link the search engine throws up is a picture taken at the last office party where you were sloshed crazy and doing bhangda, which you are most ashamed of. Here is what you do: Simply log on to some picture sites and upload a lot of flattering pictures of yourself—this way the party picture will get buried deep down in the results. To start grooming your reputation online, start a blog, even if it’s just a few pages worth. Have colleagues suggest you for wikipedia or make sure you are represented on http://www.Squidoo.com or write an article for sites like http://www.OhMyNews.com or http://www.ChangeThis.com . Then of course there are the social networking pages that give you the freedom to portray yourself in a flattering light. Try posting things that you would like the world to see. If you are feeling stretched thin by trying to deal with so many different profiles, log on to programs like http://www.Ziki.com, http://www.Wink.com, http://www.Rapleaf.com and http://www.Spock. com. They offer you an opportunity to reclaim editorial control on how your identity is constructed and represented online. Basically, these sites are aimed to become the central clearing house for all information about you on the internet. This can be like your own private wikipedia entry. You could begin with creating your profile into one of these sites, and then you add your feeds to your profile. You can pull any RSS feeds you currently publish and sites like Ziki will compile them together into an up-to-the-minute round-up of your own verbiage. Throw into the mix links to your profiles on other sites such as http://www.linkedin.com/, http://www.eBay.com, http://www.Amazon.com and others and this should help you create a fairly comprehensive profile of your online presence.
