Changing Online Presence

Over the next few days, I’ll be scaling down my online output. I’m going to put the blog on hold and, once I’ve done that, will in the coming weeks/months be updating my ‘main’ website (the one hosting my PhD) to be a static, search engine optimised, half decent representation of my online identity (all in one place. Most other stuff will be gotten rid of).

I own my main website’s domain name, but all the files are hosted on webspace the ex owns – not ideal! So either way I’ll need to host it myself. It’ll just be a process to get back to a manageable online presence that I’m comfortable with. I may even keep my twitter and integrate it, and e.g. use the wordpress platform to publish my personal website and PhD (but not as a blog, i.e. not updated).

We’ll see. It’s good to keep moving with these kinds of things, and it’s not as if I completely want to erase everything. I just want to get back to a decent static representation of myself, with no additional effort required! And forget all the stuff about personal branding and the importance of online visibility – I see myself staying in my current job for years and years to come (it’s public sector so I don’t exactly need to be worried about losing my job…).

Developing a Personal Brand

I’ve been thinking about my ‘personal brand’ and whether/how I should develop it. I’m plagued forever by the private/public dichotomy, in that I’m very guarded about my online identity and don’t really want to push my real name out into the ‘web 2.0 sphere’.

However, I realise that I have to do something for my horizontal visibility. For instance, if potential employers search for my name via Google, they find a certain no. of links, as well as my PhD-website (static, web 1.0). They’ll also of course find me on linkedin etc.

The thing is though, I have never made a conscious effort to develop my name-as-brand. Simply put: if searching for my real name (e.g. by potential future employers/for projects or whatever) produces a high no. of relevant Google-hits (example: blog, twitter, facebook, linkedin, xing, etc. all with well maintained and ‘active’ profiles), I can then illustrate my knowledge of and understanding of the online space.

As it is, I can still ‘prove’ it of course (plus, I have a PhD, which helps 😛 . However, I could optimise it quite easily. The reason I’m not doing it (yet) is that I’m cautious about this privacy-issue. I know other people who work online but who haven’t developed a strong online brand, just because of that. There are also real practical implications such as: would I want my current employer to know what I write about, e.g. in a blog or Twitter? Not really!

I will have to give the whole thing some proper thought. The least I can do optimising my existing ‘public’ profiles, so that what is out there already, is going to be more useful for me and any future career development.