Change Agent

Every day on the Web there are 60 million proper name searches. Are you worried about what a search on your name will reveal? According to this TV clip you should be!

And as mentioned in this article in the 9 May 2007 edition of The Wall Street Journal titled, “You’re a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well,” there is a new site, Ziggs.com that allows you to quickly and easily address the problem.

The problem is that your good name can be negatively impacted on the Web in four ways: no news, wrong news, bad news, or buried news. The good news is that you can use Ziggs to address each of these problems and wrestle control of your name away from……Google.

The Four Problems:

No News: With over 30 billion pages of data on the Web, it doesn’t bode well when a search on your name brings up not a single page. True, for a college graduate entering the work force, ‘no news’ might be considered better than the alternative – a derogatory Face Book / My Space page. But for older adults reentering the work force after time spent raising their children, being a ‘non person’ on the Web will hurt your job search.

Wrong News: Do you know what a ‘lounge lizard’ is? I don’t. But according to ZoomInfo, a site that is supposed to provide accurate data on professionals, I’m currently VP at a company with that name. Wrong! (Turns out Lounge Lizard was a firm that designed the site of a company where I worked over a decade ago.) What wrong news is there about you on the Web?

Bad News: Recently, I was sent the CV of a job candidate who looked like a perfect fit for our current company. But the top hit in my pre-interview Google search was a legal document detailing his messy termination agreement with his last employer. Needless to say, I canceled the interview.

Buried News: A Google search on the name of my company’s CFO returns four pages of entries on how, in 1984 at the age of 12, she made it into the Guinness Book of World Records by having the longest sneezing fit, lasting 978 days. Only problem is that the sneezer is not our CFO but rather someone with the same name. Our CFO’s stellar track record helping small companies become big companies was buried down on page five. How often do you look at page five of a Google search?

The Problem, Close To Home:

When my wife Googled herself just after we returned to the States after four years in Ireland, she found nothing about her education (Cranbrook, Michigan, Harvard Business School,) nothing about her American business experience (strategic executive positions at companies like Keds, Stride Rite, Hasbro, including working three times for Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay,) nothing about her running an education foundation for six years, nothing about her Irish work experience (strategic assignments at Eircom, Ulster Bank, Smirnoff,) nothing about her writing expertise (including multiple Irish newspaper feature stories and over 40 ‘Dublin Reports’, the guts of a book about expat living,) and nothing about her involvement with the IMPAC literary awards each year in Dublin.

Rather her search returned three things: an entry showing she finished dead last in a road race in Maine; a web query where she asked how to use a belt sander to refinish an antique farm table we acquired while living in Ireland; and an extract from a review of a South African book where Jules criticized the heavy use of local vocabulary.

So rather than painting a picture of an educated, accomplished, well rounded, traveled person, Google painted a picture of someone who can’t run, can’t use a power tool, and can’t read!

The Solution:

A week after her discouraging Google search, Jules met successful entrepreneur Tim DeMello who had started a company, Ziggs, to address this problem. Jules quickly joined Tim’s team as his President and COO. Release 2.0 of Ziggs, currently in beta, has many important ‘people hub’ capabilities, the subject of a future blog. But I suggest you start by investigating the capabilities of the Profile Manager.

I’ve tried a number of sites (Linked In, ZoomInfo, etc.) each of which addresses a portion of this problem. But Ziggs attacks the problem head on. With Ziggs you – and not Google – paint the picture on the Web of who you are. You do this by completing a series of sections called Bio, Interview, Interests, Favorites (not your ‘Internet favorites’ but your real favorites, like your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry’s,) and your resume. In less than five minutes you can make a great start to managing your image on the Web by putting up your resume (but, I suggest, only after you remove your contact details; I have people contact me privately through Ziggs’ ZMail feature.) Then spend a bit more time another day completing your profile.

After you’ve completed your profile, a Google search will return your Ziggs profile. Over time your profile will work its way up to the first page. The service is free, but for a small monthly fee you can have Ziggs assure that your profile definitely appears at the top of every Google search. This service, called Ziggs WebPro, is particularly useful if you suffer from the ‘buried news’, ‘wrong news.’ or ‘bad news’ problems. (That said, the CEO of a major US consumer products company – who has none of these problems – signed up for WebPro because she wanted to be sure that the picture she painted of herself on Ziggs was always the first entry people see on the Web.)

Maybe you should too? See my Ziggs Profile for a sample. (Just go to Ziggs.com and search for Des Pieri.) Then sign up and begin to complete your profile. I’m sure the above mentioned job candidate whose CV was binned after a Google search now wishes he had a Ziggs profile.

P.S. Release 2.0 of Ziggs is in beta and contains many ‘people hub’ capabilities beyond your ‘Web image.’ But my advice is to first address the issue of your image on the Web using the Profile Manager. It’s a good foundation on which to build a more comprehensive use of Ziggs.