Reputation On The Net

I've commented on more than one occasion on the power of the internet and, in particular, the power of the various social networking sites that have sprung up in recent years. It's not enough to have an account on Facebook any more. We have to have a Twitter account feeding Facebook. We also want our random thoughts automatically updating our professional networking pages on LinkedIn. We use Plaxo to amalgamate the email addresses stored in various repositories. We have our .TEL domains, we're Buzzed and we blog.

We must spend a lot of time generating unstructured information for the consumption of the masses.

But what about the information that is generated ABOUT us BY others? It's one thing to look after one's online reputation by ensuring that we portray ourselves as professional in our tweets and blogs. But what if the baddies out their are destroying our reputation in forums that we have no control over?

I've spent a number of years applying my brain cells to the task of working out how to control access to systems and how to manage the credentials within systems. We in the industry call it Identity & Access Management as these tasks are frequently joined "at the hip". Maybe my brain has had enough of IdAM activity as most of my recent conversations seem to be related to Cloud based services, reputation management and how social networking can be an invaluable business tool.

Here's a question for you? How frequently to you actively search for information related about YOU on the net? What dangerous comments could be lurking out there? What do people really think of you?

Sometimes it may be best to not know. But, sometimes you can be presented with a very nice surprise.

Take, for example, Vintage1951's recent blog entry! In it, I've been called experienced and thoughtful! In an industry where reputation is everything, I can think of almost no higher accolade (at least, no higher accolade that won't sound over-the-top and smug!)

It's nice to see that Vintage1951 takes a similarly thoughtful approach to his reputation by connecting with only those people he has the utmost respect for. I feel privileged to be amongst them.

On a final note - have a browse around Vintage1951's blog. There are some excellent articles in there!