I was reading a blog on the CAREEREALISM website about personal online branding , Career Truth #1: Brand or Be Branded, and flashed back to a sage bit of advice I once heard from a good friend: “Never send anything in an email that you wouldn’t want in your personnel file.”

Online communication can be a dangerous thing

I had to laugh when he said it, because we’ve all hit “reply to all” when we only meant to reply to the original sender, or replied with pithy comment when we thought we were forwarding to someone else.  Some of us have forwarded the inappropriate joke on the company domain only to wish we hadn’t, or made inappropriate comments about bosses or clients.  There’s a word for this kind of action: boneheaded.

And I still laugh about the email I received years ago from a complete stranger that simply read, Continue reading →