Digital Footprint: The ‘Other’ Jack Mitchell Died Last Year, And Is Still Way More Famous Than Me

My online rep­u­ta­tion, as I expect­ed, isn’t over­ly strong.

When I typed my name into Google, the results weren’t heart­en­ing. The top results were relat­ed to Jack Mitchell, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, who was appar­ent­ly a pret­ty big deal. For this rea­son, I would rate my online rep­u­ta­tion as poor. Grant­ed, most of my pub­lished Dai­ly Cam­pus arti­cles, my Twit­ter han­dle and per­son­al web­site show up at some point, but they aren’t near­ly as high up as I would like.

I think my online rep­u­ta­tion is poor because I’m not near­ly as active as I should be. I’m a shy, reserved per­son by nature, and on the Inter­net, I am the clas­sic lurk­er: I reap all of the Inter­net’s many rewards, and I con­tribute very lit­tle to it in return. This is large­ly a per­son­al choice, but I do real­ize that I need to step my game up.

As a jour­nal­ist, my dig­i­tal foot­print reflects about what you’d expect. If you, for some rea­son, took the time to trawl through the search results, you would at some point find that I do write, I have had my work pub­lished, that I have a port­fo­lio online and that I use Twit­ter for pro­fes­sion­al pur­pos­es. In oth­er words, I am a jour­nal­ist in some form or anoth­er. But com­pared to my more active and pro­lif­ic peers, I lag far behind in terms of out­put and presence.

I firm­ly believe that, online, you should­n’t post any­thing you would­n’t say out loud in pub­lic. Also, I think you need to keep it pro­fes­sion­al, espe­cial­ly as you get old­er. If you want peo­ple to trust you, you need to show them that you care about your work. Tweet­ing or post­ing inane ram­blings laced with pro­fan­i­ty accom­plish­es the exact opposite.

To a degree, that approach can be a dou­ble edged sword, espe­cial­ly in my expe­ri­ence. In some cas­es, I have been so cau­tious about tweet­ing or post­ing to Face­book that I just don’t do it at all. I think that explains my rel­a­tive­ly small out­put online, and why I am hes­i­tant to be an active social media user. The costs of mak­ing a mis­take, as we dis­cussed Tues­day, are high­er than ever. The Inter­net does­n’t forget.

My New Responsibilities

When it comes to the idea of tak­ing on a role as a mod­er­a­tor or con­ver­sa­tion leader, I get excit­ed. I am ready to add vol­ume to my dig­i­tal voice, and I think that I have a lot to offer in that realm.

I think that I have a lot of inter­est­ing things to say, ideas to share, peo­ple to meet, etc. Because I’m nat­u­ral­ly a shy per­son, I do like hav­ing an excuse to engage with peo­ple, and jour­nal­ism – and the fact that the indus­try is chang­ing to favor bold, inter­est­ing and brand­ed per­son­al­i­ties – pro­vides me with such an opportunity.

And, at the end of the day, if I’m uncom­fort­able with that role, I’m in the wrong busi­ness. To a degree, jour­nal­ists have to lead the con­ver­sa­tion. It just comes with the ter­ri­to­ry. I cer­tain­ly don’t think it will be easy, but I am eager to chal­lenge myself by becom­ing more of a pres­ence, and putting my neck on the line when it comes to shar­ing opin­ions and express­ing bold ideas to a large audience.