What's your googleprint?

What is a googleprint, is it a term I subconsciously stole? is it a term that requires tweaking as a friend has suggested? or is it the most important word you read today!

Probably not, but for me, your googleprint is your impact on the Internet, what people will find when they search your name or your email.

A friend and I were discussing what bosses/hiring peoples could find when they googled you, as they are certainly going to do. For me, you probably can't even find this blog, if you have the right email, you might find a post I left on a forum years ago. But if they could find this blog, what picture am I presenting?

I post intermittently, I sometimes discuss controversial topics, I don't think I cuss really that often. So, I pose that because my discussions are not full of vitriol and pure hatred, it wouldn't be much of a problem. But maybe it would be, more than ever companies have to think about the personal lives of their employees and any gaffe can shoot across the Internet in a wide arc of publicity, and be tied just as much to the company, as the employee.

The moral conundrum: this is my life outside of work, but every mistake every issue can be publicly visible. I don't think a company should be able to tell me what I can say, what I can eat, what I can do, but I can still see the practical nature of them wanting to do so.

The end result, as always, will have to be a balance. In the age of the Internet, you'll never really be able to differentiate separate realms of public and personal, unless you abstain from the Internet completely (even then, someone else can post about you too). We have to accept this, and our employers have to accept that while they can set guidelines, if they impose too much, they'll ruffle far too many feathers.

So for most of us, we'll have to give a crap, and recognize when we post, when we discuss star wars, when we search for crotch hitting and a guy crying about Ms. Spears, we're sending a message, however inadvertent, about the type of person we are. To that I say, try not to be a dumb-ass, try to discuss things passionately but rationally and relaxed, and be able to defend all of what you do (even though you shouldn't have to).