What Google Knows About You

I just spent a fascinating few minutes reading about myself on Google. Not that I am so interesting, but the almost random selection of hits raised fascinating questions. Who is the "Eileen S. Winterble" portrayed on the world's most widely used search engine? (By the way, if I omit my middle initial, the hits are a bit different.) The entries ranged from my website and blog posts (good) to my times in 10K races I ran in Central Park years ago (not so good). There was also a newspaper article from 1988! Who digitized that piece of history?

While I can't control Google's mysterious algorithms, I do what I can to shape my presence on the Web. I expect people to Google me or to visit my website. I am on LinkedIn and Facebook. I keep my profiles up to date and try to separate business from personal matters although that is becoming increasingly difficult in our wired world.

Have you Googled yourself lately? Are you using social media to advance your career or build your business? Take the initiative in telling the world who you are and what you can do. Don't default to a set of algorithms.