Defend your reputation – Defending yourself is something we all learned back in grade school. I remember my dad telling me “don’t hit first, but if they hit you, clean their clock.” That was also true in my family; I was the middle of 3 brothers, so you can imagine there was a fair amount of ‘clock cleaning’ being done. Today when I search for myself, I find, the Jim Carroll Band and James Carroll the author-historian and journalist. For good or bad, neither of them is me.
Why Defend
You know I was impressed this week because of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. My hat goes off to all of the brave soldiers that fought and won the Second World War. They truly deserve the title the “Greatest Generation,” however, as always; my mind starts to wonder and consider many different concepts and ideas.
I am as patriotic as anyone; I am living the American dream. I have a flag in the yard. I have two dogs and own my own house and business. I am too young to have gone to Vietnam, and to old to have gone to Iraq. Still, as I said, my mind wonders into things internet related.
Battles
The battles we fight today are very different than WWII or Vietnam. We, as a people and as individuals, must fight internet misinformation or identity theft battles. The combatants or enemy is rarely seen in identity theft and challenging to defend. That is a topic for another day. Today I will focus for a minute on personal privacy and defending your reputation.
Defend Vigorously
Looking back, I have done many things, said many things, and raised a bit of hell in the day. I am grateful that we did not have to defend ourselves or actions on the internet back then. The problem in today’s world is longevity. What I mean to say is that once it is out, there is out there forever. It is never coming back, and we do not get do-overs. It is difficult to imagine a world whereby doing something scandalous at a kegger when you are 17 stays out there forever.
Imagine going into a job interview eight years later (at the young age of 25). And the hiring professional says, “So, I see you got drunk and threw up on a cop when you where 17… is that how you are going to treat our company or defend our reputation?”
Tips
I am going to be mentioning this topic for a while. It has become increasingly important to Google, so it is increasingly important to me.
Here are a few tips:
1 – Search for your name, or your companies name on Google, what does it say.
2 – Set Google alerts for any acritical with your name in it.
3 – Always think before you post anything negative…it says out there forever.
4 – Don’t let anyone tag you in an unflattering position.
5 – Use research tools like pipl or white pages and Google to review and defend.
In Conclusion
It is a different type of war or battle today than our grandfathers fought. But we must equally diligent and serious about defending. It is overwhelmingly important to defend your reputation, your credit, and your private medical or monetary information.
As always reach out to e2 Total Solutions for more information on defending or reviewing your personal data and reputation. We have created a partnership with Reputaion-Revolution.com to continue bringing value to all of our clients.
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