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Nothing is private if you put it online.

It’s been exactly 362 days since I was laid off and, in that year, I’ve learned a lot about myself personally and professionally. I’ve figured out what I don’t want to do with my life (work in the music industry), what I do want to do with my life (work for a progressive nonprofit communications firm), and how to get there (work as hard as I possibly can). To get there, I have to do certain things.

Hard work is the number one priority. As soon as I got laid off, the first thing I did (after sulking for a week and watching all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica) was apply for jobs and internships. Then, I built myself an online brand. That brand, now updated to what you see today, took three months to develop and become fruitful.

Never once did I consider removing my name from Facebook or canceling my Twitter account – I shouldn’t be afraid of these forums. I know they can never truly be hidden on the internet, but I can control what people find out about me by limiting the things I put online. Instead, I used Facebook and Twitter, in addition to a blog, to leverage my social media experience into a job.

No, not everyone wants to go into social media marketing for nonprofits. But don’t try to pretend that you’re not online when you really are.

I came across this article today in which people (probably around my age) were altering their social media lives during their job search. One interviewee stated that he changed his name on Facebook so that he was unsearchable only to discover that you can search for people via email addresses. He’s since changed his name back.

He later claims that Facebook is a private space and that “too many people take pictures of you. [He] didn’t want to go through and ‘untag’ all of them.”

So, you want a job, but you’re too lazy to go in and untag photos of yourself? That’s not a good sign, sir.

I passed along the article and my boss and I shared a few quick emails about our initial reactions to the article:

Me: I find it unbelievable that they’re talking about changing their names on Facebook so they don’t come up in searches, but they still use their real names to be quoted in an article on CNN.com.

My boss: My only surprise would be to learn that this is just now starting to happen, but maybe that’s because I’m from a generation that doesn’t think exposing every aspect of my life and daily doings online is normal. Could it really be true that there are youngsters out there who are just now realizing that their online profiles could hurt them in the eyes of employers (and beyond)?

We both took particular exception to two quotes:

“There’s nothing illegal or too ridiculous in the photos … but people don’t take pictures of people studying or doing school work. They take pictures of people at parties and doing silly things.”

Her response: …but people ALSO take pictures of other people traveling overseas and broadening their horizons; attending cultural events; partaking in healthy outdoor activities; sharing holidays with the family; etc. etc. There’s a whole world of wholesome, employer-friendly photo topics out there.

I’d never actually thought about it like this, but she’s completely right. There are no pictures of me anywhere on the internet of me being drunk or dressed inappropriately… mostly because I don’t do those things, but if I did, I’d have the good sense not to publish them online where they can be shared, downloaded, and indexed by billions of people whether I know them or not.

“Such prying into his online life makes Gawel uncomfortable.”

My response: As someone who works in social media, it’s perplexing that people don’t understand that your profile is out there for everyone to read or search for, unless you’re very familiar with privacy settings. Even then, that doesn’t stop someone else from reposting what you write into a public forum. It’s a page on the internet. How could you stop someone from seeing it?

I, too, have skeletons in my internet persona closet. In my senior year of college, a roommate and I got into a verbal argument which resulted in her physically harming me. Instead of taking issue with the University (they punished both of us), she took to her LiveJournal and spread damaging lies about me… using my full name. Knowing I couldn’t go to her and ask her to remove it, I made a note of this blemish in interviews and cover letters if I thought the hiring managers might search for me. I did so for a year or two until it no longer appeared in the top Google search results for my name.

As someone who got a job by bolstering my social media presence instead of hiding inappropriate photos of myself, here are some tips (whether you want them or not) about what you should – or should not – do when looking for a job:

• Don’t complain about other people in your status updates. If you absolutely need to vent your frustrations, don’t use their real name or allude to who you might be talking about.
• Don’t post pictures of other people and mock them online. I don’t think I need to describe this further.
• Don’t do something in view of cameras that you wouldn’t do in front of your current/potential boss. You may not be Michael Phelps, but someone will find these embarrassing photos some day and it will come back to bite you.
• Connect with people who do what you want to do. Easy enough, right? I wanted to go into nonprofit communications, so I followed the top nonprofit communications experts on Twitter and started retweeting them, communicating with them, and following their blogs. They may not know who I am, but I learned valuable lessons from them and kept my online persona clean.

What are some of your social media persona tips?

2009′s last hurrah.

Thankfully, tonight, the 82nd Academy Awards will conclude all the countdowns, year-end wrap-ups, and discussions of film in The Aughts. I actually agreed with the Academy’s choice to raise the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Over the past few years, there’ve been some crazy years where one film really dominates the entire landscape of award shows leaving perfectly good great films out of the Best Picture category. Unfortunately for the Academy, 2009 happened to be a year of a bunch of good films that grossed a lot of money, and no actual standouts that achieved (near) perfection of the cinematic arts.

In 2009, I can really only compile a list of movies I enjoyed, but that didn’t necessarily move me. On the enjoyment scale, I’d say the best movies of 2009 were District 9, Zombieland and Where the Wild Things Are. Other than that, only one movie truly moved me, and I didn’t even watch it in 2009.

The night of the Golden Globes, I decided to watch The Hurt Locker. Normally, I’d watch the award show, but I was so disappointed with the films nominated that I couldn’t even watch. I’d seen a good portion of the films nominated except for Avatar and THL and I refuse to pay $13 for a movie, because it’s best viewed in 3-D.

I have to admit, THL is a subtle film about an explosive (literally and figuratively) issue affecting my generation right now. Honestly, whether bomb detonators in Iraq say the film is factually accurate or not doesn’t matter to me. The bombs and the war are secondary characters to Jeremy Renner and the emphasis is placed on the relationships he does and doesn’t build with the people around him. Film isn’t supposed to be reality; instead, they’re supposed to be thought-provoking interpretations of what’s going on in someone’s story. I truly believe THL is the best movie/story of the year.

If I was a voting member of the Academy, these would be my winners of the 2009 (I left a few categories out that I simply do not know enough about or didn’t have time to consider):

Best Picture :: The Hurt Locker
(I think Avatar will win)

Best Actor :: Jeremy Renner
(I think Jeff Bridges will win)

Best Supporting Actor :: Christopher Waltz

Best Actress :: Carey Mulligan
(I think Sandra Bullock will win)

Best Supporting Actress :: Maggie Gyllenhaal
(I think Mo’Nique will win)

Best Animated Film :: Up

Best Art Direction :: Avatar

Best Cinematography :: The Hurt Locker

Best Costumes :: The Young Victoria (period pieces always win this right?)

Best Director :: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
(I would not be upset if Jason Reitman won, I’m a big fan of his)

Best Documentary :: Food, Inc.

Best Writing (Adapted) :: Up in the Air

Best Writing (Original) :: Inglorious Basterds

We’ll see how I do a little later. For now, off to see another movie instead of watching the awards show.

The four worst metro passengers.

Riding the metro in the morning is one of the most somber experiences I’ve had. No one makes eye contact, no one smiles, no one talks. You don’t want to be that guy who has the sniffles because the few people who are awake, will look up from their books or newspapers to give you a dirty look. Other times of the day, some passengers seem to think there are no rules applicable to them.

If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s people who willfully break the unspoken rules of general politeness. I’m not a always stickler for rules (unless it involves board games) and have a lot of different parts of my style and personality that contradict each other (i.e. having a ton of tattoos while also owning practically the entire Ann Taylor Loft collection), but there are certain ways you must behave in public, especially if there are others around.

I never seem to have an exceptionally good or bad metro experience; they all seem to be equally infuriating. I’m not one of those people who is an impatient traveler and commuter, so it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers. It seems like every trip I take on metro I get put in the direct path of the few types of people that really get my blood boiling.

So, here are the four worst metro passengers I come across every day:

• Parents with strollers: I’m not a horrible person; I understand that you need to bring your kid on the metro. I will probably do the same. But let me ask you a question: would you bring your double-wide stroller on the escalator at the mall? No, you’d take an elevator. Why can’t mall-etiquette/safety be applied to the metro? Not only is it frustrating for the people who like to walk up or down the escalator, but it’s extremely dangerous.

  I once watched a woman pushing an empty stroller on the escalator while holding her very young baby in her arms. After two steps, the escalator jolted slightly causing the stroller and the woman (who was still holding the baby) to fall backwards. People behind her fell like dominoes and the escalator jammed. This is still the worst, and most terrifying experience I’ve had on the metro.

• The Seat Hoarder: I loathe anyone who thinks their bag deserves a seat more than my tiny self. I also think it’s pretty selfish to sit so you’re purposefully taking up just the teeniest amount (so it looks like you’re not purposefully doing it) of the seat next to you so someone won’t sit there. Look, I get it. I don’t want to sit next to you either, but as my dad reminded me so frequently when I was sick in high school, you have to do a lot of things in life you don’t like.
• Tall People (yes, all of you, I’m sorry): It’s not that I have anything against tall people, they just can’t understand the plight of the short person on public transportation. You really shouldn’t lean against the entire vertical rail just because you can. There may be people, like me, that would appreciate being able to hold on to the vertical rail because we can’t reach the ones more than a foot above our heads.
• The Important Guy: This is the guy who thinks he’s more important than everyone else on the train either because he’s wearing an expensive suit, has a lot of messages to check on his BlackBerry, or has a messenger bag with a defense contracting company’s logo on it. Everyone in DC is important (or at least they think they are) and has somewhere to be, you’re not the only one on this halted 8 car train that’s annoyed. Take a cab.