LECHTANSKI.NET

So, I admit it. I Google myself on a regular basis. It started out of curiosity; a demonstration of my self-absorbed nature and digital vanity. But now it’s just common sense. I want to know what other people are going to see when they type my name into Google, Yahoo or Ask.com (just kidding… no one really uses Ask.com).

Well, I can rest assured I am not the only one. I’ve recently been called upon to do a little online reputation management. Meaning, I’ve been asked to check the search results of a superior at work to see what we can do about presenting a more positive image. Strangely, the strategy and tactics for achieving this are rather straight forward and nothing new. I need to work a bit of SEO fashizzle, in combination with some public relations we should be doing anyway.

From the search engine angle, the strategy is to add more positive links, promote existing positive results and play down the negative ones. The goal is to drop any negative results below the top ten or further.

In general, Google calculates its search results with a mysteriously morphing algorithm that evaluates the popularity of a page (measured by backlinks) and develops a quasi-objective view of the value of the page.

Some pages are more difficult to downplay than others. For example, government web pages and sites like Wikipedia are going to rank highly, because they are ostensibly true, informational and of high value to the general public. The same goes for news web sites and weblogs. Spam and sales sites won’t rate so highly, since they are just selling stuff.

So the other factor to take into consideration is how popular a particular page may be. Government pages will usually not have many links, but to other government pages. News sites, however, may have tons of backlinks. But if you can create a few highly-backlinked pages or take advantage of other sites with good search engine performance, the odds are pretty good you can take over the top spots.

All of this is especially true if there are not many search results in the first place. If you’re lucky enough to have an odd name (Lechtanski, anyone?), you may have few results, and the most efficient way to take over even the highest of your results is to double the number of possible results. Create some more web content!

From a PR level, the strategy is this: write some press releases. Nothing huge is necessary. You are not trying to launch a company or a new technology. You just want some pieces to replace outdated stories.

Professional releases are easy: someone just got a promotion, celebrated an anniversary or something else of that not-so-exciting nature. These will work at dislodging old news, but they won’t take the next step of fomenting the positive image we all desire. So the next step is the personal press release. Add in some releases on the topics you wish people knew about you. Now is not the time to be bashful. Think about any associations, philanthropy or public events in which you participate.

Locate any news sites in your search results, especially the negative ones. Send out your releases and the new news will outweigh the old news. Soon, old news will go away. Well, not so much go away, as not show up on Google any more. The news site will still have it, but Google will only report the latest stories from that source.

A couple of notes:

• A sure-fire way to take over one of the top spots for your name is to start a weblog. You don’t have to be a novelist, or even a writer. You just have to say something. If you don’t want to write about your life, write about your interests. One post a week is plenty, and search engines will recognize it as the voice of the person. Therefore it is deemed important and accurate. Also, you get to take control of what you say and limit the comments of others. It’s important to be honest and try to avoid posts that will create too much controversy, because other weblogs that refute your assertions will also rank highly. To get started, proceed immediately to Blogger (it is part of Google, by the way).
• Be careful what you do with social networking sites. You are putting this information out there yourself, so everyone will take it seriously. For the first time in the hiring process, I thought about Googling some of the potential interviewees. And then there’s MySpace and Facebook. Was this out of line? Was I invading their privacy by checking the personal photos, crazy philosophies or resume discrepancies that they wouldn’t likely share at a job interview? I’m not sure. But I didn’t find anything that changed my mind about anyone. It just made me think about the content of my own Facebook page.
• Every time your name shows up in digital print, there is a pretty good chance it will show in your Google results. That’s kind of how the whole thing works. So, the Washington Post published an article on online reputation management a few months ago referring to this woman who hired a service to clean up here nasty, high-ranking Google results. In the story they reprint the very nasty phrases she was trying to cleanse from the Internet ether. Near as I can tell, that reprint now serves to reinforce the original postings of those phrases, giving those nasty results new life. It’s the front page of the frickin’ Washington Post.

Now’s the time to think about your online image. It may very well be your first impression. And besides, there might be a few people from High School checking up on you.

While no one ever successfully escaped from Alcatraz, I’m going to do it. After three years of trying, I got picked in the lottery for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. I just got the email…

You are one of the lucky triathletes that have been selected as a winner the December 15, 2007 random drawing for a slot in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon to be held in San Francisco on June 8, 2008…

On June 8th, you will get to jump off a perfectly good boat into the frigid water of the San Francisco Bay, swim with 1800 of your best friends from Alcatraz to Little Marina Green. You will climb out of the water and run (with or without shoes) one half mile to the transition area, jump on your bike and ride 18 miles (most people say that it is all up hill) and then run 8 miles (under the Golden Gate Bridge, through the sands of baker beach, up the infamous sand ladder and back to Marina Green to the finish line. What a great way to spend your life.

This has got to be the most well known triathlon in the country. It is one of the few times that a chump like me can participate in the same event, right along side the sport’s elite athletes.

So on June 8, me, Gavin and 2,000 other athletes will jump off a barge to swim 1.5 miles, bicycle 18 miles and run 8 miles.

I am so excited!

Got a Wii. It’s a pretty funny story; you’ll have to ask me about it sometime.

Anyway, I didn’t really want one. I guess I think I don’t have any time or something. Whenever I don’t think I have any time (for Wii, or exercise, or dog walking…) all I need to do is cut out a little TV time and I’m good. Not that I watch an insane amount of TV, but I certainly get my fair share.

So, we got one and it is frickin’ awesome. The remote and the nunchuck, the sensor bar… We don’t have any other games but for the Wii Sports one that comes with the unit, and now Barb and I are on our way to professional rank, playing doubles tennis. We try not to yell at each other when we miss a shot, and we totally celebrate when we make a great return.

It is virtually impossible to not get into the game, because you’re so physically involved. I heard this saying once, that if you want to find the fastest, easiest way to finish a task, get the laziest person you know to do it. They will find a way to accomplish it without breaking a sweat.

Well, there might be someone out there who can play the Wii sitting down, but not me. I have to be standing up. I’m full on swinging: backhands, lobs, overhead slams. In the boxing game, there is no other option but to actually look like your fighting for your life. By the end of a fight, I am literally sweating.

Other comments:

• The remotes are awesome. You use them to throw darts, pitch baseballs, swing at pitches, hit tennis balls, bowl balls. I’m really amazed at the response I get with this. Throwing sidearm in baseball. Throwing upper cuts in boxing. Awesome.
• Somebody on the packaging team went to the Apple University of packaging. Both the product and the package are clean, white, and shiny. This extends to the packaging for other accessories like extra controllers and games. There is no denying the (positive) impact of Apple on retail packaging.
• I’m looking forward to the upcoming yoga ‘game’ set for release Q1 of next year.
• My friend Joe is going to a Wii party this weekend. I totally have to get into that.
• You get to create a Mii (pronounced ‘me’) that becomes the digital version of you for Wii games. If you take you remote over to a friend’s house to geek out, your Mii automatically follows. The Mii can look like you or not. You can even make it look like a cat or a martian. And if you create multiple Miis, they start showing up in the background of other games. They might be bowling in the lane next to you, sitting in the stands at the tennis match.
• It has Internet connectivity, but I think it by way of a USB plugin that connects to the wireless network in my house. I don’t know a whole lot about this, yet, but I will get this going, so Simon and I can play Madden from our respective living rooms.

I didn’t know I wanted a Wii, but I am psyched that I have it. I only wish I had a way to publish my Mii.

I made it to the snow today. Well, actually, the snow came to us, and I drove to Mt. Baker to take advantage of it.

• The drive from my door is one hour and twenty minutes, as long as I don’t need to stop for coffee.
• No matter what kind of shape I’m in, the first day hurts. And I’m in pretty good shape right now. I forget there are muscles I only use to keep myself from falling on my head. On the first day, I use those a lot.
• As with everything else physical I do, I need a little warm up. The first two runs today got my heart pumping. By runs four and five I was in the groove, shooshing away…
• The chair lifts at Mt Baker don’t have the guard rails, like at Whistler. So, when you’re way up there, sitting in a slippery snow-covered vinyl seat, you’re just a little more conscious of how high you are. And you’d really like the jittery snow boarder sitting next to you to stop screwing with their binding!
• Given the choice of two chair lifts, one busy and one not, go for the busy one. There’s a reason some lifts are busier: they go to cooler places.
• Just like at Disneyworld, there are singles lines. A single rider can jump in to fill a chair. So, being by myself, I got to jump to the front of every line. In an average 10 minute line, I waited no more than 30 seconds.
• I got a helmet for this year. So I also got a clava. It is awesome. It kept my neck and head warm and I pulled it up over my mouth when I was getting pelted by little snow pellets.
• When you start falling because you’re tired, go home.
• For a first trip to the mountain, it was everything I had hoped it would be.

Next week, I’m off to Steven Pass with Simon.