This is an update to my post from earlier this month, “Do you own YOU?”

You have to own your name(?)

I argued in that post that everyone should own their own name.  Well I’ve given that some thought, and have decided that is not ultimately true.  And truth be told, I knew it when I was writing the linked post.  But I had decided that nothing is better than owning your own name through a URL and making that the basis of your online identity and brand.

Ok, so not your own name, a name

While I still argue that owning your own name is best, there is still a little wiggle room for an online persona that is not your actual name.  I know quite a few females that are nervous about their names being known on the Internet.  Additionally your name may be taken, and heaven help you if you are John Smith, right?  There can only be one John Smith online, so if you are John Smith number two or nervous about using your real name, you have a couple of options: make a name from your name, or create a unique name altogether.

By making a name from your name I mean you can be JohnS, JSmith, or SmittyJay.  Something memorable that works that nobody else has.

By creating a unique name altogether I’m saying you can be something completely unlike your own name.  Something like Perez Hilton, or Technosailor.

I’m still giving thought to having two names floating around in the Internet ether.  My instincts tell me not to, but logic tells me you should push your name.  For this example I’m going to use ProBlogger.net.  The author of ProBlogger is Darren Rowse, but I can never for the life of me remember his name.  I read his book, I read his blog all the time, to me, he is problogger.  His Twitter is @problogger, not his name, one of his other blogs, TwiTip.com has the statement, “TwiTip is edited by Darren Rowse from ProBlogger Blog Tips and is all about Twitter.”  As you can see from the statement on TwiTip, Darren knows he is more defined by the name of his blog than by his own name.  This is why my instinct tells me Darren should stick being problogger, and not confuse his brand by pushing his real name as well.

Staking your claim

The two items that are criticle for creating a persona these days are the domain name and the Twitter account.  If either are taken, keep looking.

Having said that, the one constant is the domain name, but something will replace Twitter eventually.  The .com is obviously best, but there are many options now, .me, .name, .us, .org, .net, and a few more I’m sure that aren’t coming to mind right now.

The worst thing you could do

Building your online presence around your company would be the worst thing you can do, in my humble opinion.  I gave some examples in the first post of people that have maintained their own identity even through several companies.  On top of that, a company might just be looking to hire based on the network they can bring with them.  If your network is tied to your old company,   you are pretty much hosed and have to mostly start over if you do move to another company.

Dude/Dudette! Thanks for coming back, you make my day! :D Contact me at jeremy@jeremyvaught.com and let me know what you are up to.

Cheers!
--Jeremy

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This post is was going to be a part of a series of posts about Social Media in the Arizona State Government inspired by the potential of incoming Governor Jan Brewer’s administration to use Social Media much more prominently than has been done up until now.  More info on brewertransition.org & twitter.

Scratch that!  That is what I was GOING to put at the top of each post and starting writing about Social Media in Government.

But then I realized I would be getting off topic of my newly on topic blog :)  So this one post is probably all you are going to see of this.  I started a new blog on the topic at SocialMediaInGovernment.com.

It’s basically what I do here for business and Social Media, I’m doing over there for government and Social Media.  There are a lot of cross overs, so I think each will inspire the other to a certain extent, but there is stuff that doesn’t cross over, and I don’t want to alianate either side.

So please check it out if that would entertain you, otherwise, back to our regularly scheduled blogging…

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The Social Media Expert Question

by Jeremy Vaught

The Social Media Expert Question Posted using ShareThis
I was hoping ShareThis would post the video, but alas, it did not, so let’s just roll with it.  Click the link to see the video, or check it out on Facebook.
I’m not going to add much to this, but I did just recently mention CC in a [...]

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Do you own YOU?

by Jeremy Vaught

I’m reading the news this morning, and two things really collided in the metaspace between my ears.  Who owns YOU?
Part 1

Let me set this up… I’m not as old school Internet as some people my age, I got on in 1993 with a 14.4 modem on a 386 33Mhz computer.  I know, I’m a noob.  [...]

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jeremyvaught.com is turning the corner

by Jeremy Vaught

This blog is written by me, Jeremy Vaught.  I have spent years pondering exactly what this blog should accomplish, and I have finally figured it out.
What you have seen up until now
Chaos, basically.  Whatever I wanted to write about, I threw it down here.  I have written about trips I’ve taken, what I’m doing with [...]

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Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference 2008

by Jeremy Vaught

I love conferences <3
I love attending them because of three things. The people I meet, the people I already know that I catch up with, and the panels/speakers I get to attend and learn from. All three of these help me to think of things in a new way and motivate me. [...]

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More thoughts on blogging and myself

by Jeremy Vaught

I’ve been going around and around and around lately about what my strategy will be for my blogging life. One of my most recent is, “what if I create a blog for everything I find interesting?” So just thinking out loud here… this is an interesting idea. I would effectively have a [...]

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I have Xacti lust again

by Jeremy Vaught

This last weekend I attended PocampAZ.  And I re-realized that I want a Xacti for filming video.  I want to make videos, and the Xacti seems to be the best package.
My friends Mark Forman and Clintus McGintus both have the Sanyo Xacti waterproof edition and rave about it.
Here is the quick rundown from Sanyo:

Waterproof Digital [...]

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If you write a blog, why are you hiding?

by Jeremy Vaught

My original title was, “If you write a blog, make yourself contactable,” but I’m pretty certain that contactable isn’t a real word.  However, I think you get the point.  Why don’t you allow yourself to be contacted?
There are many times I want to contact a blogger, and their contact information is non-existant.  It’s like they [...]

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Protected Twitter updates

by Jeremy Vaught

I re-met someone this weekend who requested we stay connected on Twitter. I thought it slightly odd that they didn’t just follow me instead of making the suggestion, but meh, I’m game. So I went to Twitter to follow them but their updates are protected. So, I requested to be a part [...]

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