“Huh?”
He said he read my question about camping in Japan while cycling, and the handful of answers that came of it. He had Google’d me, wanting to know what he could learn about me before doing much business with me.
At the time, I was working for Gordon Smith, so most of what came up was my name listed in the minutes of varying meetings I had attended. Boring stuff, even for me. However, every so often, as I Googled myself periodically, I’d stumble across a newspaper article quoting me at this event or that event. Sometimes, upon such discoveries, I’d think “I didn’t even know a reporter was there.” But, for the most part, whatever it was that I said was usually pretty innocuous.
I had learned the lesson that was seared into my mind when my chief of staff (shortly before sending me off to Pendleton to represent Gordon) said to me: “Everywhere you go, everyone will know who you and who you represent. You’ll be watched at every meeting, on main street, and at the gas station.” That instilled in me a healthy dose of paranoia (just a little bit of it, not too much).
And while most of my public utterances were innocuous and boring, barely reaching the threshold of notable, at one point I actually said something worthwhile that found its way into a paper:
"The eyes of the nation's leaders are on Oregon, in particular Lincoln County," said Richard Krikava from the office of U.S. Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "At the White House, the Department of Justice, and in the halls of Congress, they're impressed with what's going on here. We're all paying attention and crafting policy around what you're doing.”
I remember this one vividly, also being surprised to see my comments reported, because I didn’t know a reporter was there. But, the organizers of the event asked me to get up and offer a few words, so I shot from the hip and obliged.
While digging through the numerous hits on my name, I also saw that someone (haven’t figured out who, because of the vague usernames some people have on message boards) betrayed common sense and a trust that I have with people with whom I exchange e-mails, by making public my take on a matter that hadn’t fully developed. The information wasn’t about me, nor was it embarrassing, but my name was cited as a source providing an insider’s perspective on an issue of great interest by outsiders. This was a disappointment. I would have hoped that private e-mails between a handful of friends would’ve remained private.
There are also a number of hits detailing “earmarks” I worked on with communities. While it is a staple of stump speeches across the country to trash earmarks as “pork projects”, “legalized bribes” , and signs of graft and corruption, can I defend the earmark request I briefed an Oregon State Interoperable Committee on? Can I defend the 1000s of other earmarks I sifted through, evaluated, supported, and worked for, and, in some cases, got awarded to local communities and organizations over a 10 year career on the US Senate? (For more on earmarks, see my Sept. 14, 2008 entry.)
I’ve got this blog up, a facebook page, and a link’d-in profile. What do I have on them? Do I have things on them that I would be embarrassed about? Do I post pictures of myself doing embarrassing things? Are there pictures of me or e-mail conversations with me that other people have possession of that could prove embarrassing to me (and I’m not talking about that picture of me dressed up as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – that, by the way, is in a very safe place)? Will a colleague, a potential employer, my parents, my wife, my future kids, the Boy Scouts I work with, whomever; will they find something I’m ashamed of (or should be ashamed of) on the Internet when they Google me?
While someone can find me to be a doofus within about 20 seconds of talking to me, will they find cause to condemn me as something worse after a 0.27 second Google search? I’ve been surprised by some of the things that come up on Google. Fortunately, I’m not scared by any of them.
So, I think the better consideration is whether or not the life I’m leading, conversations I’m holding, pictures I’m taking, activities I’m participating in, and things I am typing are things I should be worried about, or something I should be proud of (in a non-bragging kind of way).
I’m striving for the latter.
"The eyes of the nation's leaders are on Oregon, in particular Lincoln County," said Richard Krikava from the office of U.S. Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "At the White House, the Department of Justice, and in the halls of Congress, they're impressed with what's going on here. We're all paying attention and crafting policy around what you're doing.”
I remember this one vividly, also being surprised to see my comments reported, because I didn’t know a reporter was there. But, the organizers of the event asked me to get up and offer a few words, so I shot from the hip and obliged.
While digging through the numerous hits on my name, I also saw that someone (haven’t figured out who, because of the vague usernames some people have on message boards) betrayed common sense and a trust that I have with people with whom I exchange e-mails, by making public my take on a matter that hadn’t fully developed. The information wasn’t about me, nor was it embarrassing, but my name was cited as a source providing an insider’s perspective on an issue of great interest by outsiders. This was a disappointment. I would have hoped that private e-mails between a handful of friends would’ve remained private.
There are also a number of hits detailing “earmarks” I worked on with communities. While it is a staple of stump speeches across the country to trash earmarks as “pork projects”, “legalized bribes” , and signs of graft and corruption, can I defend the earmark request I briefed an Oregon State Interoperable Committee on? Can I defend the 1000s of other earmarks I sifted through, evaluated, supported, and worked for, and, in some cases, got awarded to local communities and organizations over a 10 year career on the US Senate? (For more on earmarks, see my Sept. 14, 2008 entry.)
I’ve got this blog up, a facebook page, and a link’d-in profile. What do I have on them? Do I have things on them that I would be embarrassed about? Do I post pictures of myself doing embarrassing things? Are there pictures of me or e-mail conversations with me that other people have possession of that could prove embarrassing to me (and I’m not talking about that picture of me dressed up as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – that, by the way, is in a very safe place)? Will a colleague, a potential employer, my parents, my wife, my future kids, the Boy Scouts I work with, whomever; will they find something I’m ashamed of (or should be ashamed of) on the Internet when they Google me?
While someone can find me to be a doofus within about 20 seconds of talking to me, will they find cause to condemn me as something worse after a 0.27 second Google search? I’ve been surprised by some of the things that come up on Google. Fortunately, I’m not scared by any of them.
So, I think the better consideration is whether or not the life I’m leading, conversations I’m holding, pictures I’m taking, activities I’m participating in, and things I am typing are things I should be worried about, or something I should be proud of (in a non-bragging kind of way).
I’m striving for the latter.
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