Ryan Joy (atxryan)

Not that my use of the moniker is any more real than anyone else’s, but what’s in a name? A username, at that? Well, it’s a personal brand for starters and one that I’ve cultivated for sometime. A quick Google Search for atxryan will show that I’ve been somewhat successful.

Ah, but what’s this?

I’m not a Druid, nor interested in Druidism any further than I what I can find on Wikipedia, but you wouldn’t know that based on the Google search above. In the context of the 9 out of 10 search results pointing to me, you’d assume that this Meetup.com profile is mine as well. However, this is a different atxryan than myself. See, you can put anything you wish as your public name on Meetup.com. On this profile, it reads “Please don’t confuse me with someone named Ryan Joy, who also goes by atxryan online. Thanks.” Touché.

I love how Meetup.com says “atxryan chose not to make Meetup membership information public.” They should really work on their privacy protection.

I know that I can’t expect to be the only one to use atxryan as a username, but that’s not the point of this post. I’m thinking more about this in terms of personal brand management. Large companies have strategies to promote/protect their brand and they keep on top of new developments. It’s in my best interest to do the same. I’ll say this, I’ve got nothing on my friend Alex Jones (google search) (though I do share my own name with a C-list celeb: Ryan Joy).

PS - I learned from my friends at Capital T Theatre during their recent production of “i google myself” that the term for looking your name up in search engines is Googlebator.