Since this has come up several times in our class discussions recently, we thought that we'd post a couple of recent articles which address keeping your professional online identity separate from your personal one. Our experience is that you cannnot keep the two totally separate, and there will always be some overlap, but creating Facebook and Twitter pages for your business separate from your personal pages seems like a perfectly reasonable and logical thing to do. Bottom line is though that the only way to make 100% sure that your next potential employer doesn't see the pictures from your lost weekend in Vegas is not to put them out there...anywhere. Better still, don't take pictures of anything you wouldn't want showing up on the internet some day....
[H/T to super-curator, Martin Gysler for finding this. He sees to have an uncanny knack for coming up with the right information at the right moment.]
One question that seems to me to be very important. What is the best way to do, here are some interesting ideas about it. [note mg]
Dear Lifehacker,
I'm a pretty savvy person when it comes to getting my work on the web where people can see, but all this talk about Facebook passwords and things has me re-thinking my personal/professional boundaries. Should I set up completely separate accounts for my personal life and my professional life, or is that kind of misleading? How can I juggle privacy and openness, especially if I want to make a name for myself and get hired?
Sincerely,
Camera Shy
Dear Camera Shy,
Well, there's no clear yes or no answer here, and what's best for you will really come down to how much you want a potential employer to be able to find out about you. Balance that with exactly how strong your desire for privacy is, and you'll know where you come down on this issue. There are some ramifications to going either way though, and a comfortable compromise in the middle may work best for you—let's dig into that a bit.
Via Martin Gysler
9# great read, at balancing the two and how we do it, almost by becoming two separate people