By Sree Sreenivasan
DNAinfo contributing editor
Names are on my mind. A whole bunch of 'em, in fact.
For Columbia Journalism School's graduation ceremony next week, I have to read out the names and hometowns of more than 300 students from 40 countries and 30 states. I am working off a list of phonetic pronunciations, but even easy-looking names can be tough. There's an "Alice" that's pronounced "Alee-chay," a "Diana" pronounced "Dee-ana" and a "Castillo," pronounced "cas-TIL-o," not the more usual "cas-TI-YO."
But when your own name is "sree sree-knee-VAH-sun," you've got to take this stuff seriously. Besides, it's that range of names from around the planet that keeps the afternoon interesting for parents while they await the reading of their own graduate's name.
Names are also on my mind because of the failed Times Square bombing attempt. The accused's name is Faisal Shahzad — and while might seem like an extremely rare name, turns out it isn't. Several sites got burned last week when they ran what they thought was a Facebook photo of the admitted would-be bomber. It turned out to be some other Faisal Shahzad.
When I last looked, Facebook shows more than 500 folks with some variation of that name. Clearly, even though newsrooms have had more than 15 years' experience looking up people online, they can still screw it up.
It even happens to me.
There's a lawyer who appears regularly at the Supreme Court named Sri Srinivasan (our names are all spelling variations on the names of the Hindu god, Vishnu).
I regularly get e-mails from journalists who confuse the two of us after he argues a big case. They don't hesitate even for a second to think there might be another person with this "exotic" name. It's that same attitude, I am sure that trapped those folks dealing with the Shahzad story.
But the lesson to be learned here for journalists isn't just to be careful when finding people on the Web. It's also to make sure YOUR name stands out online.
There's a lot that people can do to make sure they aren't confused for other folks.
As I outlined in recent columns about personal branding and online profile photos, paying attention to what people find when they are searching for you is important. In a recent Fortune cover story about business social-networking site LinkedIn, the head of global recruiting for Accenture said he plans to make as many as 40 percent of his hires through social media.
Some simple things you can do:
* Regularly search your name on Facebook, Google, etc, to see what comes up about you. If you can control some of those results (including what you've said you've "liked" on Facebook), remove them. But you won't be able to remove most of them.
* Make sure your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles are complete and have your latest information.
* Fill in the "bio" section of your Twitter profile, explaining who you are and also include your full name. The latter seems obvious, but I see so many folks whose Twitter profiles do not contain their full names, spelled out (am not talking about your Twitter handle, say, @sreenet - I am talking about your full name).
* Fill in and create your Google Profile at http://profiles.google.com. This little-discussed service says: "What do people see when they find you online? You can control how you appear in Google by creating a personal profile..." That should be reason enough to get you to fill yours in right away.
What did I miss? Tell me about other issues, tips and tricks dealing with identity in the age of Facebook in the comments below, or via @sreenet.
ALSO SEE: Sree's columns on personal branding and online profile photos.
Every Monday, DNAinfo contributing editor Sree Sreenivasan, a Columbia Journalism School professor, shares his observations about the changing media landscape.
