Every once in a while, I Google my name. Several years ago I had a borrower who didn’t believe in the internet. He wanted to remain invisible in cyber space. He went to great lengths to avoid photos at charity events, even when he looked his best. He didn’t write in blogs or give quotes to the press. At conferences, he turned down speaking invitations. He had a lot of great ideas to share, but he stayed silent in all but private settings. A lot of powerful and smart people take this approach to the web and publicity.
We were about to make a multi-million dollar mortgage to him. The lender “googled” him, which has become standard practice for savvy lenders. We got only the ‘bad stuff’ that others had to say about him. Nothing about the tens of thousands he gave to charities. Nothing about the civic boards he chaired. Nothing about the great family man or father he was. Nothing about the employees who respected him. Nothing about the business achievements he had. Only a few bloggers who had an ax to grind.
This bad publicity, true or not, I believe colored the lender’s decision not to make the loan. The few nasty bloggers could have been easily been pushed to the rank of page 16 with just a little cyber transparency by this super citizen, instead the causal observed might google him and think he’s a jerk who didn’t pay the light bill at a rental property he once owned and evicted a dead beat tenant from? The blogger did a better job of making his case, but this was the case.
From that point on, I decided to live as cyber-transparent of a life as possible. My views, although not radical are published in local ‘letters to the editor’ (maybe too many). My achievements and failures are widely internet ready. It’s all a part of the public record. Some friends think this is crazy, but if someone wants to know about me, I want them to find out all the ‘good’ and any bad or ugly is out there any way whether I like it or not.
Too many people’s google-results simply turn up campaign donations. It is always confusing to me when I find they gave equal dollars to both candidates, what does this say?
Here’s a new one I found on me: http://www.avenuemagazine-digital.com/avenuemagazine/200904/?pg=91 I had actually forgotten this speech. Having a cyber record of it is kind of like a scrapbook of my ideas that someone else is keeping for me.
PS - If you want to know something about me, call me, I will tell you.
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