Never Forgetting
Yesterday, while eating a leisurely breakfast in San Diego before our Webmaster Workshop, with some fun and a little amazement, I watched crowds of people head toward the last day of the 2010 Comic-Con. Many of them – young, old and every age in between — were in ”extreme costumes” that were hard to believe. Who knew so many people actually dressed-up like the Green Hornet or Thor on any given day? Not me.
And, then I flipped open the New York Time Magazine and started reading the cover story entitled the ”Web Means the End of Forgetting.” Great article, and I thought how appropriate on today of all days. I wondered how many pictures and postings of the Green Hornet and Thor would end-up on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter … never to be erased again? Never to be forgotten? And maybe ruining a few future opportunities down the road.
The article posulates that there is a crisis looming … one in which no one can ever again “digitally start over,” we can never “erase” our posted past. What is posted on the Web, stays on the Web. Period.
On an almost scary note, the article cited a recent survey by Microsoft, which indicated that fully 75% of US recruiters report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and 70% indicated they had rejected candidates because of something they found online via search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites, blogs and Internet gaming sites.
And even though there are “reputation defender” companies jumping into the fray to help rehabilitate online reputations — let’s just not go there. Think before you post … make sure that you can live with whatever you are putting online — because it will be there for life … and someone, someday will likely find it. And know what your friends are posting in your name or likeness.
Read the article. Think about it. Think before you post. Think both short-term and long-term. Last year, totally unplanned, I was in Vegas for Halloween and now, totally unplanned, I was in San Diego during Comic-Con. Everyone should do both at least once. Maybe only once. All I can say is, thank goodness Facebook wasn’t around when I was in college …