My parents taught me the maxim “If you can’t say something nice about someone don’t say anything.” It was a good rule but as I was growing up into the wise old owl I am now I didn’t always follow it and occasionally I’d make a slip.
That’s when another general truth my parents taught me kicked in “What goes round comes round.” That one took me awhile to understand but now I realise they were referring to karma or everything in life is cyclical and will eventually balance out.
Those maxims are even more relevant on the Internet as it quickly becomes a bigger part of our lives and introduces new ways for us to communicate and express our thoughts and opinions.
But one thing you may or may not be aware of is that once you express your thoughts or opinions on the Internet they will be archived forever, literally. This means that if you create a webpage, leave a comment on a blog, participate in a forum discussion, post to Facebook or Twitter, whatever you write leaves your control and enters into some server side database that you have no control over.
An example of a public archive is the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine a project started in 1996 that now has over 150 Billion web pages archived and searchable. You can search the archive and view web pages published years back and may no longer be online, or that’s what the original publisher may think.
So in your quest to create your personal brand my parents maxims become even more important because what you publish will always be available to anyone who really wants to find it.
Remember your brand is what people do think about you and if you make a habit of expressing unsavoury opinions of people, karma will kick in and come back and bite you. And always be aware of the Way Back Machine and such like because they are probably allies of karma.
Socialising