Thing 11: Your Professional Brand

One of the first things I did when starting this Thing was to google myself in incognito mode.  I found it quite unnerving but was glad to discover that everything was above board and more or less matched my professional activities.  It is however quite disturbing to see how much information about you ends up on the internet without you having put it there.  Books I have written, talks I have given, archival catalogues I have prepared, qualifications I have gained - all of this is available at the press of a button without any active contribution from me.

This brings me to LinkedIn.  I set up a LinkedIn page with some apprehension during the last Rudai course.  I understand the need to make oneself visible in a professional capacity but this must also be weighed against the need (not to mention right) to privacy.  With cyber trolling, identity theft and online abuse on the increase, too much online presence is neither healthy nor safe, which in part explains my antipathy towards Facebook and Twitter as outlined in the previous blog.  Having said that, LinkedIn is the one online tool that I actually like and this is probably because it is professional rather than personal.  There is nothing on my LinkedIn page that is not available online about me anyway, and none of it is what I would regard as personal information.  I am OK with that, even though my personal preference would still be for no online presence at all but at this day and age that simply doesn't seem to be possible.

Once again, I have not been active on my LinkedIn page, but this Thing inspired me to customize my address and to update my profile which I have been meaning to do for ages as the old version didn't quite match my present situation.  If ever I become more ambitious in my career development, this would definitely be the way for me to go rather than Twitter or Facebook.

I don't have an issue with thinking of myself as a brand because I tend to see this as a tool which enables me to control what people know about me in the online community.  Whether you like it or not, information about you is likely to find its way to the internet.  That being the case, it is better to harness the tools that enable you to control that information rather than letting it control you.

Image: Joint Base San Antonio