Online Identity

This whole "personal brand" thing is a really interesting space. I mean here we are talking about people as individuals such as you and I yet applying a term to us in the same way as we'd talk about brands like, say "Ferrari" or "Apple". I pick those simply because they're two of the strongest, most recognisable brands I can think of which makes it a whole lot easier to draw some of the parallels I'm about to. The first thought I really gave to brand was about 7 and a half years ago when I wrot...

I originally wrote this post earlier on in the year. I honestly can’t remember what the abuse was that led to it and frankly, that’s probably for the best as it allowed me to re-read this and ensure it comes across as general advice rather than a knee-jerk reaction to a specific unpleasant experience. Whilst the simple process of writing it helped me get the episode off my chest at the time, I’ve decided to post it now because I think it’s important, both for others who encounter nasty behaviour...

Exactly 7 years ago today, I wrote my first blog post titled Why online identities are smart career moves [https://www.troyhunt.com/why-online-identities-are-smart-career/]. That's a pretty self-explanatory title and I wrote it while gainfully employed in a job I'd been in for 8 years at the time, but it's worth a quick read as it sets the scene for this post. I may have had a steady job, but I knew I wouldn't always be there... I won't go into all the background here, if you want the details o...

Three and a bit years on and it’s time for a change. Blogging has been good to me – very good – but I was starting to feel a bit like the plumber whose own house was full of leaky pipes. Heavy markup burdened by Blogger’s propensity for in-page CSS, completely mobile unaware and as I’ve written before, not real friendly for those half a billion Chinese internet users [https://www.troyhunt.com/2012/03/browsing-broken-web-software-developer.html]. Plus of course, several years of design weariness...

The final catalyst for me eventually taking the leap into the blogosphere came from an unexpected source. It was actually my own response to a Stack Overflow Question [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1352597/continue-education-or-put-myself-out-there/1353125#1353125] where I’d suggested that one of the best ways to make yourself more marketable as a software developer is to have an active online profile. I don’t necessarily mean to try and achieve semi celebrity status like Scott Guthrie [ht...