No Mother, I'm not getting a tattoo...

So, cpd thing 3 is all about personal branding, or how you appear to others on the internet.

I thought that this exercise would be hard for me: I don't always feel comfortable blowing my own trumpet and I have traditionally been rather cautious about intentionally putting my head above the internet parapet. My first instinct was to hide behind an alias and I spent quite a while thinking about what this would look like. Then I realised that the aim of thing 3 was to control how I appear to others on the internet. You can only read what I type here. If I choose to tell you that I have a weakness for jelly tots and that I cry every time I watch the Sound of Music, more fool me!

So I had a look on good old Google for yours truly. Not too bad! A search for my name was a little too vague so I added in my hometown to narrow things down a bit. Top of the list was my Linkedin profile which could do with updating, so there's a job straight away... After that we have a couple of newspaper articles about PR that I've done in my current job so hopefully that looks good. Then there are some articles about fundraising I've done for my local community both on my own and with my daughter - again they look ok too. No skeletons in the internet closet that I could see anyway, so a positive experience!

I then decided that I would like to improve the look of my blog and my email by choosing a name that would reflect where I am professionally at the moment:"beyond the training room" I am a retail trainer (and I have a training room!) but I often find that the most effective training happens "on the job" and in conversation rather than behind a desk. I also wanted to show that I am trying to expand my career horizons; that I am on a journey away from my current training room so to speak.

I'm really happy with the results and feel that I have a meaningful space to work in and to present myself in. I would never have thought about doing this before and yet it makes so much sense. I feel so much more comfortable moving into the world of Web 2 interactivity knowing that I can have confidence in my professional identity.