Experimentation is free

I take lots of digital pictures. Mostly of my kids. In the past I would have been more conservative because of the cost of film and processing. But today it's virtually free.

The same can be said for experimenting online. You can easily set up a Flickr site, a blog, or an email account. Build a wiki. Get a Second Life. Set up a store or start your own radio station.

In most cases, you can build these sites, try these new technologies, and learn for free.

Thomas Edison once said "To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." In that sense, the Internet is an incredible pile of free "junk" to power your imagination.

Privacy, Civility, and the Long Arm of the Web

An interesting and thought-provoking article in today's Washington Post about a recent snowstorm and the firestorm it has created.

Friday fun: Lolcats

What's a lolcat you ask? A lolcat is a compound, made-up word, combining the acronym "lol" for "laughing out loud" and cat. Lolcats are images created as a humor device for photo sharing sites and other internet forums. These images usually consist of a photo of a cat with a large caption. The caption generally acts as a speech balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or as a description of the depicted scene. Often the words are misspelled or juxtaposed on purpose.

To get a feel for this sub-culture you probably didn't know existed, you can visit lolcat.com or lolcat.net.

Follow-up on digital footprints

I wrote a couple weeks ago about our online tracks - the posts, pictures, quotes and mentions about a person that can be found through search engines and can influence everything from dating to employment.

Now the folks at the Pew Internet Center have released a report looking at this same issue. Here are some of the findings:

Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint; 47% have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22% five years ago. However, few monitor their online presence with great regularity. Just 3% of self-searchers report that they make a regular habit of it and 74% have checked up on their digital footprints only once or twice.

In addition to providing national telephone survey data, the full report (PDF) also includes quotes from online survey respondents as well as experts in the fields of privacy, online identity management and search.

Online behavior policies

I would guess that most organizations have relatively clear "Internet Usage" policies that govern how computers and the Internet should be used for work-related purposes only during work hours. Often employees agree to this policy by signing a document when they are hired or by clicking an agreement when their computers turn on every morning. And of course all employees adhere to these rules. Ahem.

But many organizations struggle with what to do regarding a corporate policy for governing and guiding their employees' online behavior outside of work. Should employees be allowed to have their own blogs? What if they talk about work on their blogs? What about MySpace pages?

Edleman PR isn't afraid to tackle the issue and has one of the best policies I've seen. It's thoughtful and thorough, and it educates and advises rather than simply prohibiting certain actions.

Obviously organizations are going to have different comfort levels regarding how their employees represent themselves and the organization online. But thinking through the issues and clearly communicating with employees is the key to an effective policy.