From CEO to employee with an opinion, we all share at least a slight intrigue about how much someone can find out about us from the web.  Further, we have become aware that our initial personal and/or company brand/ reputation is often determined by what someone else can find out from the web prior to meeting or buying. Given these views, here are a few guides lines for a quick digital footprint audit and "how to" find out what the web "may share" about you and or your company. 

Review by Tony Fish, 2008

Overall a good book, but this is a speed read.  For me personally well balanced and good issues raised.  Downside too US centric, too much about the law and too little about the complex inter-relationships.

Overall the book left me with a number of questions the most important one being “at what point does reporting on (shamming) the norm breakers make it acceptable that more people will break the norm, seeing the shame as tolerable to gain the benefit.”

The basic premises (which I agree with which is why I read it) is that the Internet model provides a broadcast, available and permanent record.  The ability to forget, forgive, ignore, wash away, remove or bury has gone. 

Throughout the book I picked up five core themes

            Change (why this is an important topic)

Judgements (where and how is reputation created)

            Trust (the components of reputation)

            Context (how reputation can be destroyed and responses)

            Law (the balances and checks for democracy)

Solove makes some good points about how to move forward and as these are the key values of the book, I’ll leave you to buy it and read them.  However his middle ground approach does not really encompass Scott McNealy views on privacy as of “get over it”

I would like to have seen developed a model about the complex inter-working relationships between the creation of norms, culture, shaming, correction, law and rights (including free speech)

It made me think however how much I enjoy story telling.  Imagine that great wheeze that you recall how you climbed Everest in bare foot with your best mate after a good night out.  In truth this was something you read as you were camping in the Alps.  Today you can tell the story, which indeed improves with time and becomes more embellished ( a true story).  However, someone else will soon be able to look on the Web and see that it was not you and there is no truth in your story.  Will this indelible web world be the end of great story telling?  However, I hope my mind map helps present the scope of the book, what it does not show is the over-emphasis on law that is prevalent in the book.

Is "freedom" like "trust"?   Can we replace the word boundary with experience?

Yesterday I had a long debate with a security expert about digital footprints, privacy, data, security, value and risk.  I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that "could", when used by the security and privacy profession, is used as a negative word that fuels fear, uncertainty and doubt. If you start from a premise that anything could happen, even in your wildest dreams than a statement that starts with "could" is all to often a specific state or reason why you should not do something.  

Security is surly a balance between usability and lockdown, in much the same way as freedom is a balance between open and frustration.

"Could" raises the possibility of a scenario which is hard to deal with.

"Could" is probable, but doesn't define risk or propensity. 

"Could" is a good consultancy business model if you want to buy every reason why innovation, creativity and invention are bad and ugly

"Could" often is used with the same weight as "should" and "would", but they are not the same.

Therefore:

Should is used to give advice and make recommendations and to talk about obligation, duty and what is expected to happen. Reference is to the present and the future. Should is similar to must but is not as strong as must

Would is used to talk about an unreal or unlikely situation that might arise now or in the future

Could can be used to ask for permission, to make a request and express ability in the past.

The internet enables all users to express their opinions about your brand, product, service and you.  A quick review of Twitter and Facebook will help. 

Online Reputation Management (ORM) claims to help companies with their “digital footprint.” As a service it is designed to improve your company’s online reputation, brand image, increase customers, and combat negative feedback. Using search to find comments, ORM claims to find the problem, evaluate the problem, and then strive to repair your online image.  However, if you do it right first then no issues, if not come clean, apologise and make it up with a big bonus so everyone thinks your great. 

A new name for an old idea!

Changing name may be only way to escape previous online activity reports Carrie-Ann Skinner of PC Advisor

“Young web users may be need to change their names when they become adults in a bid to distance themselves from content previously posted online about them” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society. I'm not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things."

Schmidt also told the newspaper the search engine is "trying to figure out what the future of search is".

"I mean that in a positive way. We're still happy to be in search, believe me. But one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type."

He says that at present "we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are". The search engine also knows your location, which according to the WSJ, means if you need milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google will remind you to get milk.

"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."

However, social media consultant Suw Charman-Anderson told the BBC, the problem was not as great as Schmidt believes. "There's always a lag between the introduction of new technology and the development of a set of social norms around the behaviour that the technology encourages."

She said the idea that everything is stored online is not true and it will be quite some time before that can become true "because of the enormity of the internet".

"As a society, we are just going have to become a bit more forgiving of the follies of youth."

However, many women are now considering keeping their maiden names rather that changing to their husbands to maintain their professional digital reputation, I suppose it all depends what you need to hide !

This is an article from Treeworld on August 21, 2010.   There are many Tony Fish’s and shows how someone could associate this one with me and think that I have a new job.  Learning - always take care to check that the name is the person you really want.

AN ENVIRONMENTAL expert has agreed to 16 months of koala community service after giving a developer advice that was so deficient a local council says it caused the deaths of 30 breeding females.

After pleading guilty in the first prosecution of an adviser to a developer, Tony Fish and his company Orogen Pty Ltd have agreed to provide $160,000 worth of environmental services to preserve koala communities by mapping their habitat for Port Stephens Council. The order to help protect koalas, known as an environmental service order, is on top of $120,000 in fines and legal costs and an order that Mr Fish and his company serve a modern-day equivalent of a stint in the stocks by publishing details of their offence in the Herald and the newsletter for the Ecological Consultants Association.

Under the headline ''Environmental consultant convicted of causing damage to koala habitat at Taylors Beach, Port Stephens'', the advertisements say Orogen and Mr Fish provided a developer with advice on what vegetation could be lawfully cleared on the property, but failed to advise that damaging the habitat of the koala was unlawful under the National Park and Wildlife Act.

''Both Orogen and Mr Fish were aware that the property contained habitat of the koala and koala movement corridors. Vegetation containing koala habitat was subsequently cleared.''

Mr Fish told the court that because of an oversight he failed to advise the owner of the land, Buildev, that it was illegal to damage threatened species habitat without a development consent from council, which saw more than three hectares of the 30-hectare site being unlawfully cleared in 2007.

Justice Nicola Pain said there was "no evidence before the court of any physical harm to the koalas as a result of the clearing activity".

But Lee McElroy, a vegetation officer with the Port Stephens Council, said he had no doubt that felling the trees caused the deaths of koalas which, he said, ''panic if they don't find the trees they have previously visited''.

"They remember if they passed a tree on the left or right side and they get confused and scared if the trees they climb are gone and they run across the road,'' he said.

"We lost 30 breeding females straight after the clearing event. That's a large breeding colony that has been virtually wiped out from one incident … It's not anecdotal evidence, they were using it [the cleared area] as a corridor and they ran across the road when they discovered the trees they knew and expected to use had been removed."

While admitting he had made a ''significant'' mistake, Mr Fish denied the clearing was responsible for the deaths.

"There is no evidence the clearing activity had caused any harm to the koalas," he said.

Mr Fish said he and the company he part-owns were "sorry for it" and had decided "to learn from it, to grow from it and to contribute to the industry from it".

Lisa Corbyn, who heads the Department of Environment which prosecuted Mr Fish, said the decision put environment consultants on notice they "have an important responsibility to provide accurate advice" to clients.

Mr McElroy agreed the decision was a ''very valuable lesson'' for environmental consultants.

"We come across this all the time where we have so-called consultants giving advice contrary to the legislation,'' he said. ''While there were good environmental consultants there were also bad apples who would simply tell developers what they wanted to hear. "There are ecologists trying to please developers knowing they'll get further work with them."

Today we are concerned in some ways by the thought that CCTV can capture our actions and the issues about our privacy.  This is balanced with the comfort that so are others and those who have nothing to hide are safe.  Data (video) is kept in the promise that at some point it could be used to protect you, and conversely used to capture you, when the algorithms become sufficiently good to interrupt actions, I hope never intent.

Today, in the most part, the CCTV system cannot link the image of you to an identity of you.  When this link is established could it be used to make your personal data more secure?  If you lost your phone, image the local CCTV network acknowledging that it is not you holding your phone and locks the device up, or indeed starts to track it.

Would such data (systems linking images to identity) be of use, or are the benefits outweighed by the possible downsides?

I got excited when I read this as it was spot on for “my digital footprint”, then I down loaded the report….

Trading privacy for content, John Cass, Director of the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network (CIKTN), the organisation behind the project, said: “Even when we access content for free, we leave a digital trail of metadata behind us.  By aggregating this information, organisations can generate a picture of a person’s behaviours and deliver relevant content to them.”

The biggest issue with using metadata more effectively in this way are public fears over privacy.  However, Cass believes that, in the future, people will increasingly be prepared to trade privacy for content or even financial reward.  At present some companies such as Google and Facebook collect this sort of data without the users fully understanding its value.

“The big challenge will be to make the whole process more transparent so people understand the value of the data they have, how it will be used and what they are getting in return for that data,” said Cass.

“This model already exists with store loyalty cards where we share information about our shopping habits in return for personalised offers and benefits, or cash back. The same model could be developed in the online world with companies delivering highly personalised content or offers to people.

“The traditional view is that content is free or paid for.  The recent introduction of the Times paywall shows how content creators are looking for ways to monetise what was a free commodity.  The other option is supporting the generation of content by intelligently monetising metadata to deliver relevant and personalised information to users.  Effectively people choose to trade some of their privacy for either free content or financial reward.  More than 40% of the creatives we surveyed felt this could have a groundbreaking effect in their business.

“Content companies that recognise the need to make this process transparent and give consumers the power to make meaningful choices are the ones that will be able to drive new revenue streams and delight customers,” added Cass.

Privacy as a tradable commodity was one of several key findings in the CIKTN Beacon report on The Future of Digital Content, part of a programme of 14 projects being carried out by the CI KTN to tackle the big technology related challenges faced by the UK’s creative industries.  Each Beacon Project identifies key innovation and business needs to enable organisations to turn creative ideas into business successes for the UK.

Within the UK, the Creative Industries sector contributes over 6.4% of UK Gross Value Added and is growing at faster rate than the economy as a whole. In 2007, total Creative Industries revenues amounted to some £67.5bn. The Publishing sub-sector is the largest, with Radio & TV and Advertising among the top performers.

Then I downloaded the report.  Some reports stimulate and move everything forward. Some restate where were are, what we already know and only reach what we can touch and feel, sadly this is the latter.

The full report can be downloaded from here:

http://citin.net/download/Digital-content-phase-3-report-final(3).pdf

Otherwise it can be downloaded from their web site at http://creativeindustriesktn.org/beacons/pg/groups/677/future-digital-content-experiences/