A couple of days ago I posted a map of my online persona. (At least the persona I’m responsible for posting online. ) Being married to a reformed recruiter turned evil marketing temptress of a large corporation, I know that how you represent online is going to be considered before you are hired, bought from, or trusted for anything.
It’s obvious that you should regularly ego-surf to make sure Google does you more good than harm, but I bet the next step is to consciously map out the representation you’d like to see and start implementing it.
The biggest change I made was separating my professional and personal personas. Most people have historically suggested that personal posts can be mixed just fine with professional ones and that the practice probably endears readers. I guess I just believe that context is key. A personal site doesn’t look professional and vice-versa in my opinion.
In a lot of ways your myspace page, blog, and flickr group is like the clothing worn during an interview… except that those things make the first impression now. It’s my belief that you shouldn’t be afraid people find your various online representations, but what you should ensure is that the context is set appropriately.
Think about the ugliest myspace page you’ve seen and then imagine trying to read a serious dissertation the effects of animations in online ads have on click-through rates. Now imagine the same dissertation perceived through the lens of a more professional looking blog. Reader reactions might be unfair, but you can help them by setting context and picking the best tool for the job.
Another reason for the separation was for friends. I know a lot of people that might not care what I think about the prospects of Silverlight on the iPhone. They might only know what one of those two things are. Therefore I wanted to separate not only blog posts, but also status updates and tweets. Hence twitter versus Facebook status updates. Each serves a different purpose for me now. Sure, there are people that want to and will get to see both, but some people might only care about Facebook.
Of course the other thing to consider is what’s placed behind walled gardens. You should think about the levels of openness exposed by each medium and how controllable they are. This blog… not controllable at all. Facebook updates clearly can vary from uncontrollable to tightly reasonably secure. Digital photos can range from flickr to secured mailings to select, trusted, individuals.
Finally, consider mapping out your online representation for your own sanity. Yes, work should be fun and you should like your co-workers, but you might find having some separations refreshing since the change in view is mentally invigorating… like taking a 5 minute break every hour.