Perhaps it's serendipity but it's funny how things work.
On August 1st, the 35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, for the next few days I watched and subsequently wrote about the Minneapolis bridge collapse and citizen journalism.
As a result of that post, I was interviewed by Joseph Jaffee for his Across The Sound new marketing podcast, during which I brought up the issue of reputation management during such crises.
That interview got me thinking about reputation management
in general and that I hadn't really wrote about the issue here, which
resulted in a new blog category for the topic and few new posts on the
subject:
All of the above has presumably led a Minnesota Public Radio reporter to find and interview me about managing your reputation online.
We had two fairly in-depth telephone conversations where I discussed
some of the technical aspects of how search engines work and why some
web pages get ranked higher than others, as well as some practical tips
for managing your reputation online.
She followed that up with a request to tape an interview with me, which she did at my office.
She gave me two examples of people who had encountered negative
information about themselves onlilne. A few days later I got a call
back from here asking to re-interview me because her editor suggested
she make the story about herself rather than the two examples she asked
me about.
Considering the topic, I did some online research about her and
learned a great deal about the reporter. I discovered plenty of news
stories she'd produced, so I got a feel for what she was interested in
professionally. I learned where she had gone to college, some of her
attitudes about college, that she is very smart because she'd been
awarded some fellowships to work abroad, so I also knew where she had
traveled. I found a full color photograph of her.
Further, from the information I found, I could also deduce her age
and her income. I had essentially built a fairly comprehensive
demographic and psychographic profile of this reporter.
I found nothing damaging about her except a few things she may consider slightly embarrassing.
I gotta say, she really took one for the team by making the story about what information there was about her online.
The interview was a little weird because it was my first experience
doing a radio interview that wasn't over the phone. She arrived with a
little black brick that was her digital recorder and attached a set of
black headphones to it and a big black microphone to it as well. It was
all very sleek, black, electronic goodness. I totally want one.
Anyway, while she was interviewing me, she would direct the
microphone at my keyboard whenever I went to use my computer. The only
problem is that my notebook has a very quiet keyboard! At the end of
the interview, she recorded about 30 seconds of room noise which is
used to fade from one segment into my interview so it doesn't sound
like an abrupt transition.
At one point I said something quoteworthy but the tape wasn't running, so she asked me to say it again and I think I pulled it off, but I think it sounded better the first time.
The interview was for a relatively new show called In The Loop that incorporates live audience participation. The live show for which I was interviewed will be held on October 11, at MPR's UBS Forum at their Saint Paul studios (register for tickets here).
I'll let you know when the show goes online.
