Introduction to Digital Life

Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS

Librarian for Digital Life

@KR_Barker Kimberley@virginia.edu

Learning Objectives

• Learn to define digital life

• Learn about digital identity

• Learn about how Google works

• Learn about reputation management

• Learn about digital privacy & security

• Learn about personal branding

Digital Life “A personal, professional, financial, and social

inhabitation of the digital world via investments of time, talent, and money.”

- Kimberley R. Barker

Image credit: Microsoft

Digital life: how did it become possible and popular? • The Internet

• Cost of technology lowered – Home computers; records put online; databases

created

• Smartphones • Music, calendar, GPS, apps (banking, etc)

• The Internet of Things –Fitbits; smart refrigerators; heartrate-monitoring

clothes generating massive amounts of data

Your own habits

• How many of you Google the following? – Job candidates

– Potential employers

– Dates

– Children’s friends/counselors/teachers

– Healthcare Providers

– Products

– Hotels

– Restaurants

• How much are you influenced by what you find?

Digital Identity

• Property values

• Current & past addresses

• Your alma mater

• Place of employment (past & present)

• Charitable contributions

Digital Identity

• Information about your family

• Endorsements

• Obituaries

• Anything you’ve not protected on social media

Digital Identity: What’s yours? • What would people find if they Googled you?

• Have you Googled yourself?

• If so, did anything surprise you?

• Were you happy with what you found?

• What do your search results say about you?

• What could your worst enemy do with those

results?

Digital Life

Reputation Management

Reputation Management: The Three-Fold Understanding

• Understanding the reputation economy

• Understanding how Google works

• Understanding how to establish, monitor, and maintain your online reputation

Reputation Management: “The reputation economy”

• Refers to the way in which the standing of a product/person/institution/business is shaped by the contributions of customers

– Review sites (RateMD, Angie’s List)

– News coverage

– Social media platforms

Why

?

Google was King

Data from Hitwise, 1/21/2012

reputation economy neurosurgery

Google is

STILL King

Why are we about to view eight slides about how Google works? • If you understand how it, you will

understand how to:

– Positively increase your online presence

– Monitor your reputation

– Formulate a basic reputation restoration plan

– Understand when you need to seek professional help

How Google works (1 of 7)

• Google is comprised of three distinct parts

– Googlebot

– Indexer

– Query processor

• Each part has its own specific and unique function.

How Google works (2 of 7)

• Googlebot

– Composed of 1000’s of computers engaged in parallel processing:

• Requests & retrieves 1000’s of different pages simultaneously; does this two ways

– “Add URL” forms

– Find links via web crawling

» Fresh crawls

» Deep crawls

How Google works (3 of 7)

• Indexer

– Receives full texts of pages from Googlebot; stores them in databases

– Index sorts search terms alphabetically

• Ignores “stop words”

• Converts all text to lower-case

– Each entry in index stores list of documents with that search term and also the location within the text of that search term

How Google works (4 of 7) • Query processor

Multiple parts

•Search box

•“engine” that evaluates searches & matches to relevant documents

•Results formatter

How Google works (5 of 7)

How Google works (6 of 7) (It’s a popularity contest… sort of)

• PageRank – Link analysis algorithm

– Page with higher rank displays higher in results list

– Google uses over 100 factors to determine rank

– How is PR calculated? • Basically, the more times that a page is linked to

determines its PR

– Built from this algorithm, which is used iteratively:

» PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

How Google works

Hummingbird • Google replaced its algorithm in August 2013

• The preceding seven slides are still valid

• Hummingbird is semantic; i.e., based on natural language queries

– Conversational search technology

– Uses Google’s Knowledge Graph

• Google is looking towards future

– 60% of Americans access Internet on mobile device

– Spoken searches

Mobile-Friendly Update

• April 21, 2015

–Mobile-friendliness

• Tappable buttons

• Easy to navigate from a small screen

• Important information front & center

–Mobile speed

–Desktop speed

Why should you care about reputation management?

Pew Internet & American Life’s Internet & Health Report 2013

http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2013/Health-and-Internet-2012.aspx

Social Media & Online Reputation matter

Googling among employers is on the rise • 60 % of employers use social networking sites

to research job candidates

• 41 % of employers say they use social networking sites to research current employees

• 32 % use search engines to check up on current employees

• 26 % have found content online that has caused them to reprimand or fire an employee.

No one is caring about

it for you. 1/16/2015

Safeguarding your Digital Life:

Privacy vs. Security

Safeguarding your Digital Life: privacy

• Privacy describes “the way in which we gather, store, use, share, and delete data… helps us to understand what is permissible and inappropriate with regards to our usage of data. ”

Safeguarding your Digital Life : security

Information security relates to “the confidentiality, integrity and access to data. Information security is born from the technological and procedural controls that we place around our data to achieve these goals.”

Varying levels of privacy AND

security

Remember this from 1993?

Keep in mind… • Free wifi isn’t free- you’re paying with your

personal information

• Frequently review your privacy settings on all social media platforms

• Build strong passwords; change them regularly

Digital Life

Personal Branding

Personal Branding

“Personal branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group or organization.”

- Los Ellis

Personal Branding

• Have a look at the following logos

Personal Branding

• What was your reaction to each logo?

– What did you feel when you saw them?

• Did you recognize them all?

• How much are each of the organizations part of your daily life?

• How loyal are you to them?

Personal Branding: Key Takeaways

• Choose three cornerstone words

• Write your mission statement

• Appoint a Board of Directors

Personal Branding: Key Takeaways

• Establish yourself on at least two social media platforms; post 2-3 times/week

• Have a high-quality photo of yourself on all of your digital real estate

• Monitor your presence & reputation

Resources

• “The Meaning of Digital Life”

– https://theartofadvice.com/2015/08/17/the-meaning-of-digital-life/

• “Digital Life in 2025” http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/ digital-life-in-2025/

Resources

• “Rising Use of Social & Mobile in Healthcare”

– http://mashable.com/2012/12/18/social-media-mobile-healthcare/

• The Pew Research Center: Internet, Science, and Tech

• http://www.pewinternet.org/

Resources

• “Number of Employers Using Social Media to Screen Candidates…” – http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/number-of-

employers-using-social-media-to-screen-candidates-has-increased-500-percent-over-the-last-decade-300258537.html

• “The Reputation Economy: Managing Your Online Identity in the Age of Google” – http://www.slideshare.net/KR_Barker/the-reputation-

economy-june-2016

Resources • “The History of Personal Branding”

– https://www.socialfresh.com/history-of-personal-branding/

• Introduction to Personal Branding • https://www.coursera.org/learn/personal-

branding/home/welcome

• “The Quickest Way to Annoy a Privacy Pro” • http://www.csoonline.com/article/3086079/security/the-

quickest-way-to-annoy-a-privacy-pro.html