Mutually Inclusive PR

Do Not Enter - Reputation at Risk

I reached a turning point shortly after I started reading blogs. After leaving a few comments online, I Googled myself and realized just how public my life would be if I kept on participating in The Writeable Web.

Staying invisible to Google and other search tools is hard, and getting harder. Some of the articles I wrote for my college paper in 1981 are now online. I'm waiting to see some of my more embarrassing articles bubble to the surface as my past catches up with me.

Thankfully, the poetry I wrote in high school has never been posted online. I plan to keep it that way.

While many online tools can be fun to play around with, Susan Crawford looked at the many ways privacy is threatened. And John Wagner and Stephen Silvers warned students to keep their online presence from jeopardizing job opportunities.

These are valid concerns, but if everyone worried that something written in second year university might cost them a job later, nobody would write anything worth reading.

Yes, avoid flamingly stupid public acts, if there's a way to do them privately or anonymously (good luck on staying anonymous). But employees of the future, please don't establish a standard of employability that screens out people who have done some stupid things in their past.

Is a life devoid of potentially embarrassing events worth living? Maybe, but it sounds awfully dull. Hopefully smart companies will look to hire both those with spotless records, and those who are spectacular in their screw-ups.

Employers: if you Google job candidates and find examples of errors in judgment or just plain errors, remember that you have something to gain from hiring people who are willing to take risks. Avoid the bozos who don't have a clue of the impact of their actions, but don't avoid those who show  smarts.

I've already made the decision that any future employer is going to have to be okay with my online reputation, or I won't get hired. I can live with that.

See also Recruiting the Millenial Student Using Social Software, by Una Walsh, and Online Party Crashers (New York Times).

Tags: reputation, blogging, bloggers, online, careers

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Sponsorship Scandal a Cautionary Tale for Agencies, Bureaucrats

"I was just following orders," isn't a good enough excuse for bypassing the rules and doling out money to ad firms friendly to the government, a jury ruled last week.

Chuck Guite was found guilty last week of defrauding the Canadian government in the federal government sponsorship scandal. During the trial, Guite tried to portray himself as someone whose actions were directed by his political masters.

But it doesn't really matter who was involved in decisions. Guite's name was on the contracts that gave out hundreds of thousands of dollars for laughably little (if any) work in return.

The moral of this long, drawn-out story?

Bureaucrats may be protected from being singled out when a government policy goes awry, but when you break the law, you're on your own.

The same goes for agencies.  Many of the ad/PR agency folks who got dragged into the chanelling of money from the federally-paid sponsorship campaigns back to Liberal Party contacts in Quebec claimed they felt pressured to take part in underhanded transactions. Well, they get to go to jail, too, even if they were just following orders.

Previous posts: Agency billings probed, Media ban, Bloggers flex muscles

Tags: quebec, politics, fraud, advertising, agency, sponsorship, scandal, government

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Lee and Sachi Do Asia

  Goth Kid with Contacts, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan 
  Originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

Late last year, social media consultant Lee Lefever and new (last year, anyway) wife Sachi dropped everything and took off on a trip around the world.

They left Japan recently, and are in Thailand.

Check out their experiences on The World Is Not Flat, or just see the photos on Lee's Flickr page.

The Thai Elvis, and Japanese sexually ambiguous Little Bo Peeps are worth checking out...

My post about Lee and Sachi from Oct. 2005.