Saturday, January 2, 2010

Being Googled

I had an interesting experience in early December. I went for an interview at a church where I hope to get a job. That always involves a committee. After we had been talking for a while, the chair of that committee said, "Well, I googled you." I had heard that people do that these days with prospective employees, so I wasn't all that surprised. But what came next was a complete shock. Earlier last year, I had served as interim pastor at a church which was quite technologically advanced. There were power point sermons and words to songs projected, sermons on-line, both printed and audio. The committee chair pulled out a copy of a sermon I had preached during those months. Of course, I wondered immediately....what sermon is it? Is it one I would have chosen, etc?

That was a huge learning experience for me, an experience I had before I began my blog. Now I understand fully that anything I write in my blog has to pass muster with any future parishioners or church committee. At the time of that interview, the blog wasn't there. Now when you google my name, the blog does show up, almost at the top.

There is also the matter of protecting the identify of my daughters, heretofore referred to only as "daughters". For three of them, if you googled their names, my name and my blog would not immediately come up, because their last names are different. I cannot use the real first name of the Youngest Offspring, who shares the same last name. To do so would mean than anyone who googled her would also get me. I am protecting her privacy, should she be googled. Therefore, hereafter, she shall be known as Yo (for youngest offspring).

We live in a google world, for sure, where trolls are at work [software trolling], connecting all the dots all the time! (Really!)

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