Will You Regret Your Online Presence?

Will you regret your blog or Facebook profile?

Ans. Nevar, why should one regret if the posts where true and meaningful, we are serving the web readers with quality contents in the web 2.0 era...

@ Pepper - Why are we cringing at personal brand? Cultivating your personal brand is actually a lot of responsibility. Also, while it's useful and necessary to think about your future activities in relation to your current ones, I think a better test is to simply ensure that your Facebook profile, blog, etc. is in line with your values. Goals changes, values don't.

@ Finsofts - Hear, hear. Sounds like a good strategy.

@ Nathan - I used to be more involved in the political life here in Madison and I would say, "I'm never running for office so I can have a blog." I think political candidates are open to more criticism which makes being more authentic more difficult. Having said that, I know some young political figures and it works for them to remain transparent. So maybe (hopefully), as times change, the political landscape will too.

@Rebecca - I am not opposed to the concept of a 'personal brand', AFAIC the term is meaningless jargon that conveys the same meaning as 'reputation' and 'selling your skills' (based on everything I have read about personal branding)

As far as changing values - I will play devils advocate for a minute.

I propose that values can change based on your encounters with others people. Let's say for example I valued money early on in my career. The more the better. vacation? bah! over-rated! Relationships? m'eh! Show me the money! Then I met the right one. I enjoyed spending time with this person, decided to settle down, have a kid or two and suddenly my values change. Money is not a primary motivator, I don't value money as much - but I would value more family time, and this, let's say, leads me to seek employment where I get more vacation time, or flex time, or something along those line

We are all brought up with the values of our society and our family. As we spread our wings and explore the world on our own our values may change. They may not, but there is that possibility.

This always the question people ask when they start a blog; but there are so many ways to handle this when it happens. For example, If your opinion changed over time, you can always do a lookback post on a old post; which can link back on to the old post.

There are often times so much positives, like in Leandra's case.

Sometime this could act as a good filter as well. If a company have issue on a topic on a semi-professional blog, then you want to ask if you want to work with them or not. If a bad photo is posted anywhere outside of facebook, then you should find a way to burry it.

I won't worry about facebook, since it not too easy to access item in your facebook on the company's end. (at least I hope so)

I've been putting words and pictures online for about ten years now, give or take a few years, as have a few of my friends. In my view, the value you will gain from expressing or trying to express yourself online will far outweigh any hypothetical problems you may, but likely won't, experience in the future. If anything, I probably wish I had a better record of my past posts, emails, and photos. It can be very interesting to look back at how you looked and used to view the world when you were, 20, 25, etc.

I agree with many of the above comments regarding old blog posts tracking growth. Here's a quote that I thought was relevant:

"Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today"- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance" 1841.

Thanks for asking these insightful questions, Rebecca!

Based oN other people's experience I guess we all should pay a great attention to any word published by us on the web.
Google is indexing evey letter and while we try to delete one we have noone to turn to (but the spider...)
http://www.nice-firma.com