The other day, someone who doesn't know me very well mentioned to me that they had Googled my name and found all kinds of astonishing things.

Just what exactly had they found, I wondered? I wasn't aware of anything grossly incriminating, so I figured I'd go check it out. What I uncovered was basically my life over the past 7 years - in all its amazing variety.

It had all started in 1998, when I got a job in the PR department at tech book publisher O'Reilly. Part of the program was to get the word out amongst the geeks about O'Reilly's books, conferences etc. The internet was the logical distribution method, and so I was unleashed by my boss onto newsgroups and online message boards. And thanks to the Google cache, the press releases, sample chapters and calls for submission are all still there. With my name attached to them.

While that was the start to the permanent online record of my life, it didn't stop there, and I'm actually truly surprised just which nuggets are scoring the high Google rankings.

• #1 (luckily) is my work website, Emerald Bay Photography
  
• #2 was a surprise however: an article written by these marketing consultants about my work achievements as Online Evangelist for O'Reilly. I've been away from that company for 4 years now, and and they're still talking about me to the press ...
  
• My old blog address - which sucks, since it's hosted on a server in Canada, I can't get the guy who owns the server to talk to me, and I've been writing my butt off at OnTheBrightSide.net to get some Google mojo going ...
  
• O'Reilly again - I wrote an article for them a couple of years ago about food photography, and somehow the internets have determined that it is a valuable nugget of information about a rarely discussed subject and have consistently ranked this article at the top. Has this however gotten me any food photography or writing gigs? No.
  
• Then there is Jake's insane Google juice. I did some photo work for his company, Sunray, and his band, and as thanks, he slapped up this site and this site. Has this generated work for me? Indeed, it has.
  
• Then there are the photography clients who are kind enough to give me credit for the images they've put on their websites: Architect Carolyn Walker Davis, California catering company Canape Catering, Jack Nicklaus, and BendFilm.
  
• I joined the AIAP because of their good Google mojo, and since they've featured one of my images on their site, the connection between my name and my bread-winning occupation of architectural photography has finally been made. Nice.
  
• Another surprise: a rant on my blog about the horrible treatment I got from the PR rep at the Sisters Rodeo while working as a freelancer for a local newspaper made the rounds online. I was overjoyed to find out, that other PR and marketing folks were siding with me ...
  
• And last, but not least - the self-Google brought back memories of all the cool friends I made online over time: Cameron Barrett, Robert Scoble, and Hemos at Slashdot.

The moral of the story? Watch what you're doing and saying online, folks. You knew that already, of course, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded every so often. In these times of the short-attention-span internet and blog links that don't show up in your referral logs, it's a good idea to be cautious. Especially if you're working for yourself, have an internet-centric business, and your clients are net-heads.