andydidyk.com

You can say what you want about the “green” movement, which has as many political overtones as a Dixie Chick concert, but some aspects of it are great. MountainSmith, a well-known manufacturer of outdoor gear, has recently announced the arrival of two new lumbar packs that are made from recycled plastic water bottles. By their estimates, it sales of these products will keep approximately 1.1 million bottles out of the landfill each year, which is great news. The sad thing is, the technology to achieve this isn’t really anything new, so I’m grateful for the political firestorm that’s yielding things like hybrid cars and recycled fabrics. Most outdoor equipment manufacturers know that they cater to an environmentally-conscious crowd, so innovations have been abundant (and well-promoted) for years, but now utilizing such techniques can generate a very real ROI from an increasingly aware public.

Of course, I didn’t see a lumbar pack recycling program mentioned anywhere…yet =).

Didyk is an uncommon last name. The 64,574th most popular last name (surname) in the United States, according to this site. And it’s a name that I proudly share with the roughly 120 other Didyks (mostly no relation) in the US and Canada. One of them is also named Andy Didyk (no relation), and he’s a prominent Biologist in Canada. He’s a nice guy, but as a communications professional I don’t appreciate having articles on the reproductive habits of shorebirds showing up in a search engine when someone is looking for me.

At my previous job at a small marketing communications firm, I had the opportunity to hire several new customer-facing staff. Everyone who’s been through this process knows that the typical “resume, then phone call, then on-site interview, then second interview, then contract negotiation” process is riddled with problems in terms of actually knowing who you are hiring. In many ways, it’s the business equivalent of marrying someone that you’ve been on 5 dates with because they happened to be more articulate than the other people in the pool. In an attempt to break through the facade, I decided to take an extra step and, after selecting resumes that were promising, searched for the candidates on Google, Myspace, Linkedin, and other social networking sites. The results? Most searches turned up nothing. For a select and unfortunate few, I struck HR gold by finding their personal websites that made it very clear at a glance that they would not be moving further in the interview process.

Here’s the point: if you are looking to make an impact in the new economy, and haven’t yet achieved mega-superstar status, you need to be proactive in managing your own brand online. Granted, if your name is already famous, like “Brad Pitt”, you’re going to have a harder time than if you’ve got a name that hasn’t been hijacked.

Hopefully andydidyk.com will rise above the shorebirds in a few months. I’ll let you know when it does.