I’ve been thinking a bit about managing my online reputation. Mainly because every time I hear someone talk about how kids these days put such stupid stuff about themselves on the internet and how they are silly to think the internet wont remember it forever… I think about how much stupid stuff I have of me on the internet.

I totally agree that to a certain extent you probably have to control what people see of you, and no I wouldn’t put any of my secrets online (although I did wonder about postsecret because it would be kind of cool to anonymously tell your deepest darkest secret to the world), but I do have a Flickr account that I upload basically all my stupid pictures to without any form of security, I probably could never get a job at Vodafone now because of my online rants, and sometimes I freak out when someone starts following me on Twitter because despite the fact the whole world can view it, I still treat it as a group messenger among close friends.

I’m smart enough to know that when I’m really angry and write a massive rant on this blog, to save it and wait a day before re-reading it and deciding whether or not to publish it. But that and the fact that I don’t really link to my publically viewable accounts is about all the self-censorship I do.

Is this a bad thing?

I don’t think so. I LIKE the fact that my customers get to know me and see me as a person not just a suit (not that they could see me as one anyway because I don’t own one, but you get the point). I talked to someone last night about how his boss is terrified of people finding out how small their business is. Sometimes I wonder what people think of my business. We have a pink door hanger, we have work drinks most nights (or afternoons), we hang out beside the motorway sometimes, just watching the world go past, we’re very small and yes, we live in New Zealand. When I write it like that it feels like a major confession, but actually those are all things I’m PROUD of, it’s what makes us what we are.

If you know my opinion on something like climate change and disagree, I hope that only makes our relationship more interesting, not that you would no longer want to work with me, but seriously, if it has that effect, then it’s probably best that we DON’T work together.

If you know the combined age of our company’s employees is less than 70 and think we can’t possibly have the experience or skill that you require, then that’s kind of sad, but I think our work speaks for itself.

If you think that because you see pictures of me acting like a hooligan with my friends in the weekend, that I’m unprofessional, that’s unfortunate, but some of my best ideas happen when I’m out having a boogie and also I don’t want you to be under any illusion that this company is my life.

So I know that when I have a daughter and she behaves like me on the internet, I’ll have to fight myself to not intervene, but I totally think we go too far sometimes with trying to create online persona’s that are nothing like what we do in real life and the coolest thing about the internet is that even if we never meet, you and I could really get to know each other.