I’d like to share an audio podcast created for my workshop session on Digital Reputation Management, the first podcast I ever recorded. It was a beneficial experience working on this project with Julian Gobert, who created the sound and music.
Listen to podcast, length: 4:46
| Podcast Script |
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I’m here with John Zeus, the content expert of the digital reputation management and social network session, one of the essential skills workshops featured in the wiki (an online collaborative content sharing platform for a YMCA program). In this podcast we try to summarize the highlights and objectives of this session and help prepare facilitators for its delivery. The estimated time to deliver this session is 5 hours including all discussions, activities and debriefs. Hello Zeus,..Hi Julian. Can you tell me the main objective of this session? The main objective is for participants to be made aware of and manage their online digital reputation, and “digital dirt”, to determine if it is a professional or damaging presence, and to protect and maintain a positive online reputation. This session will be a useful tool and resource for participants in their existing placement as well as their future career endeavours. What is the definition of Online Digital Reputation? An online reputation is the perception that one has on the Internet based on their digital footprint. This is also known as a web shadow or net rep. Digital footprints accumulate through all of the content shared, feedback provided and information that you create and is created about you online. Tell me a little bit about the session itself and what it entails? *This is a very interactive session. It requires the use of a computer lab or laptops for each student with internet access, and focuses on Youtube, Facebook Twitter and Linked In. The key to delivering a successful session is to have enough time to complete all of the activities, and to allow ample time for debrief and discussion. This session allows a lot of freedom for the facilitator to launch different discussions catering to the specific needs of the group. The facilitator leads the discussion but is encouraged to allow relevant points of departure. The session opens with the Did You Know (4.0) video featured on Youtube. This video focuses on the growing importance of online technology and media resources compared to traditional sources. The exponential growth of online technology further solidifies the need for online reputation management as it becomes the “go to” source for any and all of your personal information. Can you tell me about the various activities involved in the session? There are many different activities in this session. Participants interview each other to find out positive and negative social media experiences and share these experiences with the group. They also google themselves to find what information about them is currently online. Participants also go through a mock online profile of a fictional girl named “Amanda”. First showing the “real Amanda” and next showing her online profile with damaging information that doesn’t reflect well on her and could be a detriment to her activities at school or hamper her chances of finding employment. The focus of this activity is to fix her online profile in a way that will still reflect who “Amanda” is (highlighting her sports, scholastic achievements, and personal goals)while improving her online digital reputation. With the tools used to fix Amanda’s profile, participants are then asked to go into their own social networking profiles (on Facebook and Myspace) and clean them up. The final activity has participants creating an active professional LinkedIn profile. They google themselves to find their new LinkedIn profile. This is another way to establish a positive online presence. Why do they need to have an online presence? Contrary to popular opinion, having no online presence could actually be detrimental in your job search. Employers may see this as a case of “they must have something to hide” . It is becoming more and more of an expectation from employers that you will have an online presence. So in this regard, having a limited, but professional online presence is better than having no presence at all. Let me add that this session has been beta-tested with youth interns and we’ve had some great feedback. They enjoyed the session, and felt that it not only prepared them for their career search but also for life. Okay thanks for your time Zeus. Thank you. This concludes the podcast for digital reputation management and your social network. |
More feedback on this workshop during beta-testing:
“This workshop not only prepared me for my career but also for life.” – Sarah, Youth Participant in St. John’s NL
“Great that there are opportunities and workshops today to learn about the modern technology of our generation. The workshop was very informative and taught me new things about internet privacy and networking. I had never heard of LinkedIn before and feel like it will be very useful for me in the future. You were a great teacher and overall it was a great experience. Thank you for sharing and being so easy going. Thanks again Zeus.” – Matt, Youth Participant in London, ON
Questions:
Usually the best way to engage learners at the beginning of a workshop is to ask question as part of an opening discussion. Here’s a few opening questions for this topic. Try asking yourself, go ahead….
- What is net rep? What is a web shadow?
- What’s your net rep?
- What is digital dirt?
- How much digital dirt is out there?
- Can you find digital dirt on yourself?
- Is Facebook a positive or negative thing? Why? How?
- Have you searched your name online?
- Do you think having an online presence is essential?
- Do you think having no online presence is beneficial?
- Do you have a profile on TWITTER, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN?
- Any one who does not have a FACEBOOK profile?
- How can you clean up your digital dirt?
JOHNZEUS.COM 
February 7, 2014
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