What can you do when the infamous deeds of someone else with your name are all over search engines?
When I was born there were two other Judith Mohns very nearby -- my mother and my favorite aunt. The "Judy, Judy, Judi" made for regular Cary Grant imitations at family events, but if there was yet another Judith Mohn anywhere else in the world, I knew nothing about her.
Judith is not a Jessica or a Jennifer of a name, it pretty much died off with Ms. Garland. There were never other Judys in my school classes or subsequent offices.
Search engines were just coming into play when I became Judith Griggs 14 years ago, introducing me to name twins worldwide. Until recently they were/are an impressive lot. There is a published geologist, a lawyer/Formula One executive in Austrialia, a brilliant recording artist and a few women seriously involved in their communities. In the democracy of the web, I consistently topped them on all search engines-- not by merit but volume. I blogged. I was quoted in newspapers regularly as a function of my job. I bought the url judigriggs.com on the advice of a literary agent. There was no meritocracy involved. I "owned" our name online.
The more accomplished Judith Griggs' may not have seen in that way, but I thought the system was quite equitable.
Then came the great "Judith Griggs" fiasco of 2010 . A heretoforth "deep pager" - someone with our name who never previously showed up in the top five pages of results -- this Judith Griggs was the editor of an obscure cooking magazine when she ignored copyright law and stole a protected recipe without permission. When caught she did not claim ignorance or apologize -- with no facts remotely in her favor, she argued simply that she was right. The incident created a tremendous amount of online debate and coverage culiminating with the title 2010 Media Error of the Year.
Thirty years in media and communications and there is my name forever linked to that auspicious award cite. The timing, simultaneous with my opening of my own business, could not have been worse. For all I know, my more accomplished name twins may well assume that Judith Griggs is me getting my rightful comeuppance. But it's that other JG who has landed our shared moniker in the Urban Dictionary as a synonym for incompetance and arrogance.
Although search engine algorithms are updated regularly and become more sophisticated with each generation, the only way to beat a prevalent usage is to be more prevalent. Companies have sprung up promising to clean your name online (with radio commercials sounding much like those who previously promised to clean your credit) and they have taken for themselves the mantle of "reputation management." Until this time "reputation management" was a specialized practice of public relations, the type which I practice. But they have national ad budgets and I have no ownership of a business classification that started appearing in textbooks in the 1960s. To their credit, they have recently amended their tag line to "online reputation management."
So what do you do when you have a notorious identity twin and do not wish to hire such a company? Take care of your own online presence first. Stake your claim to who you actually are by getting as much information about yourself out there as possible. Use the "Google juice" strength of Linked In , Google Profiles and similar well-trafficked sites to define clearly who you are and what you do. Update any old information you may have posted years ago.
Althought the official term for it is "egosurfing" - it is not egomanical to Google yourself. If your online identity matters to your business practice, it is necessary preventative care.
Make sure information purporting to be actually about you is correct. If misinformation appears on legimate sites, contact them directly with a request for correction.
If the information is on an aggregator site, like many that sell "public information" on people or provide "business directories," there are rarely human beings involved in gathering and posting the information. They mechanically scrape other sites for names and related information and often draw erroneous conclusions. They are notorious for getting it wrong and provide no recourse for correction. Most sophisticated web consumers see the sites for what they are and lend no credence to the eight husbands and 42 jobs they have linked me to over the last few years.
With more consumers daily qualifying their business decisions online, it's important to monitor and mend what's out there -- and push appropriate information forward every chance you get.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The global goose - what makes a news story fly
In the last three days my cousin, a local goose and his buddy the deer have together appeared before millions of people all over the world. A quick web check shows their story has been translated into at least 20 languages so far. At no time in human history has a simple story had the capacity to go so far so fast -- and this one flew.
Yesterday -- in the midst of a potential U.S. government shutdown, continuing nuclear issues in Japan, and war on three fronts -- it was the top viewed and Facebook posted story on CNN. If a publicist had anything to do with this story it would be a career topper. But there was no publicity professional involved. It is a textbook example of what the right story at the right time can do in the world of new media.
Some folks may remember the days when news coverage was driven by local daily newspapers whose enterprise was a feeder system for television and then national news -- not any more.
The story was featured today on the front page of the local Buffalo News - three days after Andy Parker, a meteorologist at the local NBC affiliate aired the story and after it had appeared on/in CNN, New York Times, Yahoo, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Toronto Globe, hundreds of local TV affiliates, thousands of websites and tens of thousands of Facebook postings.
The way this story exploded is a new technology phenomena. Why it exploded is as basic as my first week of journalism class at St. Bonaventure University in 1978.
Fired up by Watergate and Woodward/Bernstein, the last thing I wanted to hear from the retired Olean Times Herald editor who was teaching the class was that "pictures of children/babies, animals and pretty girls always sell papers." I didn't ask for my tuition back immediately, but the thought crossed my mind.
He went on to explain that as an editor his job was a daily search for at least one story that could make a guy reading the paper at the breakfast table set the paper down and say to his wife "Hey Martha, have you seen this?" I wrote "Hey Martha" in my notebook and stared at the clock willing it to the next class.
He then told us someone pulling into their yard and hitting a tree was not news. I was ready to leave the room, until he explained that it was news if the same driver had just completed a perilous two month round trip to Alaska with nary a scratch and had the accident as they arrived home.
Entering my fourth decade of work in and around news, I learned early that Olean's Gil Stinger was dead on.
The deer protecting the mother goose has all three aspects of the Stinger triad... as well as seasonality with the dawn of spring.
1) Animals with babies involved
2) Animals behaving in unusual and positive ways ("Hey Martha..." )
3) A guy whose job it is to chase geese away making a point to leave the pair alone
No, these standards do not apply to "hard news" -- the stories which outlets are duty-bound to cover and we as consumers should want to know. Editors and producers have walk a daily tightrope of finding enough of what people want to see to keep them around for what they need to know.
It's part of my job to pitch stories to media . I work hard to find pitchable angles and would rather tell a client "no" than call a media professional with a story that has no chance of running. Even when I think I've got a good story, they don't always fly. Any media relations practitioner who guarantees coverage is on shaky ethical ground. Those decisions are made exclusively by editors and producers locked in a mortal battle with each other for our attention. If the story being pitched does not have significant community impact, it needs an angle.
If the best angle you have is "I worked really hard to start this business" -- this is a story best reserved for family gatherings and paid advertising.
A few years back, my cousin Craig took early retirement from the Secret Service and moved back to Buffalo with a border collie. They had been trained together to herd Canada Geese and Craig was starting "Borders on Patrol" as a safe, green way to control the health hazards and property damage caused by a protected species that was less migratory and more populous than ever.
When he asked me for publicity help, I knew we a solid story to sell based on : a growing community health problem (Canada Goose run off had closed Darien Lake state park and was a major problem for local golf courses and athletic fields); a unique solution (no one in this area had a business of that sort yet); an interesting back story (Craig was going from protecting four administrations of presidents and vice presidents in DC to coming home to hang out with dogs on golf courses and parks - yes, I used the Quayle to goose line); and .... you have to see this coming ... a cute, clever, exceptional animal in the border collie.
This was a visual story so I went to TV first. I went to WGRZ because of their ratings. I talked to Andy Parker because he had already done some great environmental stories... and because I really like the guy.
Andy's first terrific story and a great piece by Jane Kwaitowski in the Buffalo News put Craig's business on the map. His hard work and excellent customer service grew his client list to the place he turns down more business than he accepts. My involvement in this story ended a couple of years ago.
When Craig sent Andy the pictures of the deer, it was as one good guy to another -- a little "Hey, Martha" between friends. Andy mentioned Craig's finding to some of his family members and they thought it was pretty interesting, so he asked Craig to come into the station for an interview. Within hours of the story being posted on the WGRZ website, Craig started to get interview requests from everywhere. The cemetery where the goose/deer team nests is now putting out its own statements -- as well as fences to keep the crowds back and a webcam to try to catch the goslings debut.
Stories can now go farther and faster -- but what makes folks say "Hey, Martha" really hasn't changed much at all.
Yesterday -- in the midst of a potential U.S. government shutdown, continuing nuclear issues in Japan, and war on three fronts -- it was the top viewed and Facebook posted story on CNN. If a publicist had anything to do with this story it would be a career topper. But there was no publicity professional involved. It is a textbook example of what the right story at the right time can do in the world of new media.
Some folks may remember the days when news coverage was driven by local daily newspapers whose enterprise was a feeder system for television and then national news -- not any more.
The story was featured today on the front page of the local Buffalo News - three days after Andy Parker, a meteorologist at the local NBC affiliate aired the story and after it had appeared on/in CNN, New York Times, Yahoo, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Toronto Globe, hundreds of local TV affiliates, thousands of websites and tens of thousands of Facebook postings.
The way this story exploded is a new technology phenomena. Why it exploded is as basic as my first week of journalism class at St. Bonaventure University in 1978.
Fired up by Watergate and Woodward/Bernstein, the last thing I wanted to hear from the retired Olean Times Herald editor who was teaching the class was that "pictures of children/babies, animals and pretty girls always sell papers." I didn't ask for my tuition back immediately, but the thought crossed my mind.
He went on to explain that as an editor his job was a daily search for at least one story that could make a guy reading the paper at the breakfast table set the paper down and say to his wife "Hey Martha, have you seen this?" I wrote "Hey Martha" in my notebook and stared at the clock willing it to the next class.
He then told us someone pulling into their yard and hitting a tree was not news. I was ready to leave the room, until he explained that it was news if the same driver had just completed a perilous two month round trip to Alaska with nary a scratch and had the accident as they arrived home.
Entering my fourth decade of work in and around news, I learned early that Olean's Gil Stinger was dead on.
The deer protecting the mother goose has all three aspects of the Stinger triad... as well as seasonality with the dawn of spring.
1) Animals with babies involved
2) Animals behaving in unusual and positive ways ("Hey Martha..." )
3) A guy whose job it is to chase geese away making a point to leave the pair alone
No, these standards do not apply to "hard news" -- the stories which outlets are duty-bound to cover and we as consumers should want to know. Editors and producers have walk a daily tightrope of finding enough of what people want to see to keep them around for what they need to know.
It's part of my job to pitch stories to media . I work hard to find pitchable angles and would rather tell a client "no" than call a media professional with a story that has no chance of running. Even when I think I've got a good story, they don't always fly. Any media relations practitioner who guarantees coverage is on shaky ethical ground. Those decisions are made exclusively by editors and producers locked in a mortal battle with each other for our attention. If the story being pitched does not have significant community impact, it needs an angle.
If the best angle you have is "I worked really hard to start this business" -- this is a story best reserved for family gatherings and paid advertising.
A few years back, my cousin Craig took early retirement from the Secret Service and moved back to Buffalo with a border collie. They had been trained together to herd Canada Geese and Craig was starting "Borders on Patrol" as a safe, green way to control the health hazards and property damage caused by a protected species that was less migratory and more populous than ever.
When he asked me for publicity help, I knew we a solid story to sell based on : a growing community health problem (Canada Goose run off had closed Darien Lake state park and was a major problem for local golf courses and athletic fields); a unique solution (no one in this area had a business of that sort yet); an interesting back story (Craig was going from protecting four administrations of presidents and vice presidents in DC to coming home to hang out with dogs on golf courses and parks - yes, I used the Quayle to goose line); and .... you have to see this coming ... a cute, clever, exceptional animal in the border collie.
This was a visual story so I went to TV first. I went to WGRZ because of their ratings. I talked to Andy Parker because he had already done some great environmental stories... and because I really like the guy.
Andy's first terrific story and a great piece by Jane Kwaitowski in the Buffalo News put Craig's business on the map. His hard work and excellent customer service grew his client list to the place he turns down more business than he accepts. My involvement in this story ended a couple of years ago.
When Craig sent Andy the pictures of the deer, it was as one good guy to another -- a little "Hey, Martha" between friends. Andy mentioned Craig's finding to some of his family members and they thought it was pretty interesting, so he asked Craig to come into the station for an interview. Within hours of the story being posted on the WGRZ website, Craig started to get interview requests from everywhere. The cemetery where the goose/deer team nests is now putting out its own statements -- as well as fences to keep the crowds back and a webcam to try to catch the goslings debut.
Stories can now go farther and faster -- but what makes folks say "Hey, Martha" really hasn't changed much at all.
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