The Reputation Economy: How to Optimize Your Digital Footprint in a World Where Your Reputation Is Your Most Valuable Asset

by Michael Fertik, David C. Thompson

Reputation is power. 

Your reputation defines how people see you and what they will do for you.  It determines whether your bank will lend you money to buy a house or car;  whether your landlord will accept you as a tenant;  which employers will hire you and how much they will pay you. It can even affect your marriage prospects. 

And in the coming Reputation Economy, it’s getting more powerful than ever.  Because today, thanks to rapid advances in digital technology, anyone access huge troves of information about you – your buying habits, your finances, your professional and personal networks, and even your physical whereabouts - at any time.  In a world where technology allows companies and individuals alike to not only gather all this data but also aggregate it and analyze it  with frightening speed, accuracy, and sophistication, our digital reputations are fast becoming our most valuable currency.

Here, Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com and one of Silicon Valley’s leading futurists will draw on the insider  tools, insights, research, and secrets that has make Reputation.com the leading reputation management firm, to show how to capitalize on the trends the Reputation Economy will trigger to improve your professional, financial, and even social prospects.

You will learn:

·         What keywords to put in your resume, performance review, and LinkedIn profile to come up at the top of potential employers' search results.

·         How to curate your on and offline activity in way that will reduce the premiums calculated by insurers, lenders, and investors. 

·         Tricks that will get you express or VIP treatment at banks, hotels, and other exclusive special offers.

·         Ways to improve your review or rating on sharing or peer review sites like Yelp or Angie’s List, or your standing – as buyer or seller - on sharing economy sites like AirBnB or Uber 

·         How to create false tails and digital smokescreens to hide the negative information that's out there

With a good digital footprint, the world is your oyster. This book will show you how to control, curate, and optimize your digital reputation to become “rich” in a world where your reputation is as valuable as the cash in your wallet.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Economics, Entrepreneurship

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 10, 2013

About the author

Michael Fertik is a published fiction author, poet, produced film writer, and playwright. His poetry, short fiction, and novellas have recently appeared in Minor Lits; december; The Write Launch; Eclectica; Litro; Cease, Cows; Feminine Collective; etc.. His writing has won fiction, poetry, and film prizes and includes a New York Times Bestseller. He lives in Palo Alto, California, where he is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor.

Reviews

[Laila · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another read for work.

Wikipedia calls Fertik a "privacy advocate" -- which I suppose confirms how bad Wikipedia can be, or how good Fertik is at managing his own reputation. If this book is anything to go by Fertik is as much a privacy advocate as a campus security chief telling girls not to drink and not to wear short skirt is a feminist or anti-rape advocate. (And if that campus chief charged girls thousands of dollars to lecture them on their behavior, dress them in grey, modest clothes that cover everything, and take all their fun and freedom of personal expression away.)

Now, I'm pretty deliberately doing what the book tells me not to do here: Yes, I am putting negative content online. Gleefully. Purposefully. Hear me roar.

The Reputation Economy is an incredibly biased (dude who founded a business on reputation management scares/bores people into believing they need reputation management) guide to self-censorship, fear and submission to
authority and circumstance. It's the least aspirational non-fiction book I think I've ever read. It's also incredibly contradictory from “If you chose to respond directly [to negative news/rumors/comments], set the record straight as widely as you can, without drawing undue attention to the original allegation." (haha okay), to suggesting one should never post anything that could be inflammatory one day in the future, but have an online persona, that is at the same time really authentic and unique... um okay then!

What I got from it was - in a world analysed by robots: pretend to be a robot, or better yet, get as close to actually being one (unless retroactively, your crazy idea of potentially destroying your reputation by starting a youtube channel actually makes you a star, then you're golden!).
But as I am still rebelling against the idea that I should wear make-up and high heels to work every day, I'm not going to create a virtual Barbie-doll version of myself to fool possible future employers/governments/health insurers into believing I'm something I'm not. That feels like the antithesis of what the internet should be. I'd rather our smartest people FIGHT the robots and be actual privacy advocates ;).

[Raghu Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The other day, a couple of my friends who are currently unemployed but experienced software engineers in the Silicon Valley, lamented to me about not being able to land a senior position in any company now. They were told that their 'branding' is unimpressive and so it is not good for the company to hire them in senior roles. On my travels in Europe, often the managers of hotels where I stay, ask me to post a review of their hotels on Tripadvisor because I am a satisfied customer. They say that reviews are posted mostly by dissatisfied customers resulting in low ratings for their hotels and that they would like me to help them balance it. One can feel the pressure of what the authors of this book call 'the Reputation Economy' acting on individuals and businesses alike nowadays. The advent of social media over the past ten years has put pressure on all of us to become 'phonies' to some extent by trying to 'manage' our image like the politicians or film stars or media personalities. It is a sad state of affairs for humanity if all of us have to behave as if we are on a 24/7 reality show on the internet. But authors Michael Fertik & David Thompson make a convincing case that this is what the future looks like and we better get busy on managing it whether we like it or not.

The book presents an image of the new world in the likeness of a closed village community. In small communities, removed from the larger world, you are constantly under pressure to conform and abide by the rules, irrespective of whether you agree with them or not. Similarly, today and in future, in the world of Big Data and Big Analysis, your online image and reputation are important assets to be created, nurtured and constantly updated and maintained. This may become more important than concrete assets like money and other things. So, we must pay attention to what we do with our phones, laptops, tablets and other net-connected devices at home and work so that they present a consistent positive image. We need to act as though we are being watched all the time. The authors say that in obtaining loans, renting an apartment, finding a job, finding a date or life partner and in many other activities of importance in our lives, it would be the online reputation that would be the tipping point between success and failure. In short, in a DAMM world (Decisions Almost Made by Machines), racking up as many credentials as possible that can be digitized, quantified and measured will be crucial to launching a successful carrier in any field.

In spite of all the enthusiastic arguments of the authors, I am not convinced that we are that close to such an Orwellian world. Silicon Valley is over the top about Big Data and its possibilities. But a lot of social media data is unreliable, irrelevant and biased. In dating sites or job sites, people describe their own personalities, capabilities, goals, likes and dislikes. We all know how objective we are about ourselves but when a computer uses it to generate a composite picture of a person, it runs the risk of 'garbage in , garbage out'. There is also a lot of misinformation on the net on people and brands by their detractors. The book itself quotes a major effort by Greenpeace in successfully maligning Shell Oil through disinformation. Even though Shell managed to clear its name, the information simply stays on the internet and a search still shows up all the disinformation. So, such an excessive worship of Big Data is also harmful. It is what is termed 'Big Data Hubris' or 'Automated Arrogance' in the media.

Another thing about Big Data is that mostly its successes are only touted loudly but not the failures. Let us look at a couple of dampeners. The NSA is an example of this excess in collecting data about everyone in the world from all the devices mentioned above. According to a Senate committee report, NSA could not point to a single instance of preventing a terror act based on the data collected by the pervasive snooping of US citizens. This is because AI has not advanced enough to process all this data automatically to provide real value and it is simply impossible to manually look through it either. So, they are back to looking for some human lead to narrow down the search. In the same way, Silicon Valley was overjoyed when Google search results were put through Big Data Analysis to announce flu trends earlier than the Center for Disease Control did a few years ago. This was widely published, but what was not widely known was that a couple of years later, the same approach failed. Big Data Analysis overestimated the prevalence of flu in the US by more than 50% and over-predicted its prevalence in 100 out of 108 weeks. The obvious conclusion would be that big data, in order to be really an useful tool, must be processed alongside other forms of conventional data analysis. Only by combining them together we get a true picture of the world as it really is. I feel that after all the initial euphoria dies down, the tech industry will gradually come to treating the 'online reputation' with a pinch of salt and take it as just another input in making their decisions rather than leave everything to computer algorithms. As things stand today, if we leave everything to automated algorithms, we are likely to miss out on the Outliers which are the ones that often make the crucial difference. Perhaps, AI would advance far in future that we could depend totally on algorithms to run our lives. But, it doesn't look to be round the corner.

The book is a good read to appraise oneself of where we are today, even though it is somewhat celebratory in tone about Big Data and Analysis. For the average, non-techie, it is even scary to see this future and it may simply turn them all off completely from posting another message on Facebook or Twitter.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hiding from the ever-watching Internet and other proprietary databases is not always a practical option in today’s ever-connected world. More and more of what we do is stored, processed and made available to others.

It can be a lot more problematic than a late-night drunken Tweet or comment on Facebook about how much you hate your boss. Your reputation can be considered by people who don’t know you but they want to know about you, possibly to lend you money, rent you an apartment, give you a job and much more. Your reputation may be analysed and a decision taken by computer – no human involvement will be necessary!

A possibly scary situation with not-so-much oversight, yet it is “early days” for these integrated decision-making processes. You might be able to polish some areas of your online presence with a bit of thought, although it might not be entirely possible to fool the machine in the long-term. In the short-term, the authors note, you might be able to hide any “bad” information by overloading the search engines with “good” information. You might be able to stuff any job applications with the keywords and phrases the computer is looking for to get you past the filter without directly lying. Maybe even the odd perk or upgrade along the way too. Yet computer systems can only get more sophisticated, demanding and possibly less forgiving. Maybe it is too late to totally clean up your online presence and it is not in the interest of all service providers to make securing your online profile easy thanks to their ever-changing “privacy” settings. After all, they want to data mine you to death and sell your personal information as much as possible.

The authors have done a great job in creating a thought-provoking, challenging book that whilst hard-going at times is worth the effort. Should you be desirous of further reading there is also an extensive series of notes and bibliographic references at the end. It is hoped that the book has a detailed index for deep-diving although it was not present in this pre-release review copy. The reader is treated to a great mix of history, current events and future forecasts in a free-flowing, interesting, accessible narrative. A little better internal signposting, a few tables and illustrations might have broken up the stream of text, but these are minor issues. The content is good and, after all, “content is king”.

You shouldn’t have a nightmare by reading this book but you should be sitting there with “question mark bubbles” floating over your head and an action plan being formulated for the future if you have read this carefully. It might be one of your better investments for the longer-term.

The Reputation Economy: How to Optimize Your Digital Footprint in a World Where Your Reputation Is Your Most Valuable Asset, written by Michael Fertik & David C. Thompson and published by Crown Publishing/Crown Business. ISBN 9780385347594, 256 pages. YYYYY

[Claire Binkley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is too paranoid and futuristic for me.

Fertik does have Harvard and Stanford credibility going for him, but his website does not seem all that reputable to me. I mean, look at it: http://www.reputation.com/
Does that seem 21st century to you? It seems 1990-ish to me.

I had to check to make sure the KGB (or the FSB as the force gripping Russia is to be called now) was not involved, which I did since through paranoia is how those groups operate. No, the Russian police-spies aren't associated, as far as I can tell.

I think our reputations are best protected by not doing anything disreputable or creating anything sub-par.
Anyway, the subjective opinions of the idiots around us are usually pretty easy to brush off, so reputation supervision is not required.

This book sounded interesting, but I dismiss its claims as invalid.
I hope this review doesn't sound too snobby! I know, after all, that sometimes "shit happens" so reputation marring is not uncommon. However, um... we do as best we can...

Maybe you might like this book, since it's short and not hard to understand.
My closing sentiment regarding it is similar to the chant "Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but names will never hurt me!"

[Peter Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential read about how we all need to manage our digital reputations.

[Jung]

Now that you know how to become a star-employee in a world where AI machines are entering the workplace, make sure that your online activity doesn’t jeopardize your career prospects. We all leave a trace online, and more and more hiring managers pull these up alongside the CVs of hopeful applicants. If you want to learn how to effectively manage your online reputation so that it doesn't cost you your dream job, head over to The Reputation Economy.

---

Collaboration is key to innovation, but it’s important to know when to team up and when to work alone.

Okay, so you’re learning, asking intriguing questions, and coming up with stellar ideas. Plus, you’ve regained precious time and attention.

Congratulations! You’ve got curiosity, creativity, and consciousness sorted.

Now, let’s say you’re working on a new idea with great potential. Imagine how much better it would turn out with the help of a whole team of curious, creative and conscious individuals? This is the last C that will put you ahead in an AI-filled workplace: Collaboration.

The key message here is: Collaboration is key to innovation, but it’s important to know when to team up and when to work alone.

History books are filled with geniuses who we imagine working alone, intently focused on their projects. But this image of the lone genius isn’t quite right. A great idea may strike one person, but it evolves incredibly when others can contribute, and some of the best minds knew this.

Leonardo da Vinci had an entire studio of protégés helping him, while Benjamin Franklin established the American Philosophical Society, a group of peers dedicated to discussing life’s big questions. Collaboration brings a variety of perspectives and expertise to the table, increasing the chances of innovation.

To build your own network of collaborators, you have to form what psychologists call “weak ties.” These are connections outside your strong relationships with family and friends, and they’re most likely to offer perspectives, information, or connections that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

You can accumulate weak ties by increasing chance meetings. Bell Labs, where fibre optic cables and the first laser were invented, benefitted from chance encounters. Its building in New York had hallways so long that people couldn’t see the ends. As a result, researchers from different fields often met on their long commutes from one point to another.

You may not have a long commute, but you can meet different people by changing routes, going to different coffee shops and restaurants, and, most importantly, talking to new people when the opportunity arises.

Once you have a network, don’t rush out and collaborate every time an idea forms. There’s a time for everything, and this also applies to collaboration. Before reaching out, ask yourself exactly why you need external input, and what the people you have in mind can offer. If you can’t clearly answer those questions, put some more solo work into your idea until you can.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fertile is an award-winning CEO of Reputation.com. As it is, businesses and sellers already rise or sink going by user’s reviews (Uber, Airbnb, Tripadvisor and ebay). More and more, however, even buyers are ranked (Uber, Airbnb, and ebay). This provides information to sellers to see whether they want to provide service to buyers. The author posits that in the future, even individuals will be scored, much like China’s reputation score. Big data will allow corporations and people to check on individuals, with access to the social media networks, credit score, newspaper appearances, amongst others. So people with high scores will be treated like VIPs, and get headhunted with heavy signing bonuses; people with low scores will be denied services or employment.

What to do then?
1. Think carefully before posting something on social network, or any websites. Remember that the comments are there for the world to see, and will be there forever. Thoughtful analyses are good; drunk photos are bad. Good grammar is important.

2. Be engaged. Even if we opt out of social media. our friends will still post pictures of us. Powerful AI can eventually identify us. Own the conversation by being proactive. Swamp the (biased) bad stuff with good stuff. Build a reputation by becoming an expert in something.

Will the internet change our world into an Orwellian state? I agree with the author that some aspects of it are already happening. The good news is, this builds trust and enables people to do business with each other even if they don’t know each other.

[Bryan Keyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I read self-improvement/ professional books such as this one, I always try to identify the marginal gain the book can provide (Impact of the idea/how much time to read). Fortunately the book only took a few hours to read, but unfortunately I cannot imagine this book is of much value to anyone who has grown up in the digital age. Its pretty obvious for me and most people my age (late twenties/ early thirties) how to capitalize on the tools social media provides us to separate us from the rest. But, we know that. That's why we are on social media. We are there because (we think) we are unique, we are the best, we are worth following.

If you feel you do not understand the power of twitter, reviews, commenting on companies LinkedIn posts, providing your own content (upload a video here or there to youtube) then go ahead and read. As for the rest of us kids, keep doing what you are doing. We'll all be fine.

Minus 1 star for the fear mongering rhetoric. HR firms don't have PRISM at their disposal, they have an algorithm to sift through trash applications and human judgment.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The founder and CEO of Reputation.com co-authors and shares about how the reputation economy can impact everything from your financial scores, relationships, career potential, and more. There are interesting insights into how things will be given credit and understanding about the platforms have developed to craft who we are digitally, even if we aren't on certain platforms. Our social networks develop shadow profiles and those associated with our online connections could have the potential to impact trustworthiness, wealth, or even advancement in a professional field. As this was written published in 2015 (probably written in 2014), I would be interested in seeing an updated version of what these authors thing about reputation power, disruption, accuracy, and impact for our digital imprints.

[Darin Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything we do, produce and consume is tracked, captured, stored and analyzed. Shoshana Zuboff describes this process through a distopian lens in "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." If the glass is half-empty for Zuboff, it is overflowing for Fertik. Rather than an cause of privacy concerns, Fertik presents the surveillance economy as a land of opportunity. The book is both a tour of the current social media landscape and a primer on personal brand management. It is useful as a guide to familiarize the reader with how personal information is captured and used, especially in regards to how it can impact ones professional life. The tips and tactics offered are a bit simplistic and in some cases obvious. It could serve as a decent airplane read, but lacks the depth and substance necessary to be truly valuable as a career tool.

[Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up in a tech-savvy community that emphasized digital citizenship and proactivity, I was curious to see what narrative would play out here being published back in 2015. A lot of it is good common sense about how to behave online and why it matters and will matter more in the years ahead. I appreciated the examples used of businesses and individuals who succeeded and were hurt by the digitization of the Reputation Economy. Straightforward read and tackled different areas of life online-personal, professional, commercial.

[Kara Bloomer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great read for anyone who wants to understand how data analytics are becoming the center of our new world.

[Alexis]

I actually started reading this a while ago and got creeped out when it was basically episode 1 of season 3 of Black Mirror. I have a fairly good following on a few social media platforms and I've seen their influence in action. It's cool and really wrong and creepy at the same time. I guess it won't stop me from using it. I'm not really sure how to reconcile it more than that.

[Leanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Reputation Economy. Ever heard of the term?

I hadn’t either until I picked this up. The premise is basically that in the future your reputation will be your best asset. How people perceive you and what your reputation is like will determine job promotions, potential spouses, how easily you can get a loan, etc. Sounds pretty cool but also kind of scary.

This book explains the whole concept of the Reputation Economy while giving you tips to improve your reputation. I was drawn to this book because I had been job hunting and wanted to make sure I was keeping my professional and personal lives separate. The Reputation Economy provides a lot of information on how to spruce up your resume and use key words that will get you noticed faster. Most online applications are scanned and screened for certain words or credentials so your resume might not even get through to a potential employer id you fail the electronic portion. There is also a wealth of information about how to keep your personal information from your professional environment by creating private Facebook pages and only posting things that paint you in a positive manner.

I really enjoyed this book by Michael Fertik and David C. Thompson because I learned so much about how important your online persona really is. Most employers, dates, or even new friends will Google search you and look at your Facebook page or Twitter profile and it’s important that you don’t put out any information that you’d be embarrassed if a stranger saw.I personally, am very comfortable with my online presence and have deleted things that I thought were unfavorable (Yup, most of my drinking pictures from college) but those things could already be in data centers all over the world and they could be hurtful in the future. A huge portion of the book talks about how it’s easier to keep collecting more data and building bigger data centers than it is to delete information. So, down the line we could find a way to easily comb through troves of information and quite easily learn everything there is to know about a person. Kinda scary right?

Bottom line, if you’re interested in harnessing the power of a good reputation you need to read this book. It was great and I definitely recommend it to anyone. Especially us bloggers who put our whole lives online. I am equally excited and scared for a Reputation Economy, it’s pretty much inevitable so why not be prepared?

*I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review. All opinions are my own.

[Timo Multamäki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty superficial and repetitive. Surely would have been far better if more condensed. The topic itself is real, but the hyping used by Fertik here isn't what I thought that I'm paying when buying this book. Likely you'll find better books about this topic.

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reputation isn’t a new concept, and many of us know how to improve our reputation both in person and through social media. Reputation Economy seeks to expand our view of reputation to include the big data analytics of today and tomorrow.

For anyone unfamiliar with the tricks of building a good reputation or repairing a bad one, this book is a perfect place to start. Although the primary focus of the book is digital reputation, the authors provide an introduction to each concept before offering data analytics examples. They suggest ways to highlight your skills, avoid unfavorable comparisons with others, and when to stay out of a reputation battle.

For those with more reputation experience, this book is well worth your time. You will find those reputation sources you are missing, as well as a few tools to add to your reputation building tool-kit. Both business reputation and personal reputation examples are included.

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Reputation Economy: How to Become Rich in a World Where Your Digital Footprint Is as Valuable as the Cash in Your Wallet by Michael Fertik deals with the concept that reputation can translate into power. In many aspects of the business and financial world, reputation can be just as valuable as money.
Reputation can affect how other deal with you, whether or not they are willing to extend credit to you, and who may potentially employ you, among other things.
In a world full of social networking, people often do not realize what they post, or what is posted about them, can have an impact on their reputation. Mr. Fertik includes information on how to create smokescreens and other strategies for countering negative information present online. This book is an invaluable tool for those who are worried about how their reputations may affect them in their future in the business/financial worlds. This book was won from the Goodreads.com website in exchange for a review.

[River · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is pretty superficial. It lacks depth and tends to towards endless repetition. It reads like a blog post stretched out with filler in order to make a book.

Some of the information is interesting and worthwhile regarding how computers are being used to judge "reputation" and how that "reputation" might be used in the near future to evaluate you in an employment, financial, or personal setting. But any good information and analysis is overshadowed by the books overall shallowness.

Also, the author seemed to move back and forth between praising and condemning the "reputation economy" which made the book seem rather incoherent.

[Paco Nieto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't stop reading at the beginning as I was shocked with all the things I was reading about how I was clearly an example of a person leaving a digital footprint linked to my online reputation. I took note of all the aspects I could do to improve my repuation. I also felt relieved that the author's recommendation about keeping or improving an online reputation, I was already doing them or had done them for a long time. The final chapters the book falls into a highly detailed narrative that laked interest so it could had ended better but still all the book has current and future things to use.
I really enjoyed it and recommend it.

[Prasanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Reputation Economy shows you all that is happening with your personal information in the cloud and where this data use is headed. It may not impact you that much right now, but soon you will find that your actions sitting in your room, when nobody is watching, are shaping multiple decisions about what you are offered and the opportunities that you will perhaps never see. ~ Non-Fiction Book Reviews

[Vairavel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apart from stressing the fact that your digital reputation is important (which all of us know by now!), several times in the book, I did not get much value out of this book. In fact, the author asks you to 'do' certain things to keep your image clear and shining and for me, that is an integrity issue.

[c · Rating 1 out of 5]

if you're completely clueless about social media, this may be slightly useful. otherwise, the book reads like a paranoid 17 year old, making vivid assumptions of the future while only small portions are ever likely to become true. I forced myself to read halfway through until I couldn't stomach the thought of wasting any more time on it.

[L.e. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good read indeed! I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to reinvent themselves in a more than positive light,it's a good place to start. How ever there is a price element to the process. If you are willing to pay for it.

[Linda Tapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the information in this book is very interesting and valuable, I felt it often didn't match up to the title. I had hoped for much more in the way of steps to take, etc. but everything offered along these lines was information I already knew.

[Will Ducey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book three plus years after it was published and it still gave me a lot of ideas. "You become like the five people closest to you" becomes even more important when recognizing the impact it will have on your digital footprint.

[Donna Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens on the internet doesn't stay on the internet. A invaluable resource for the casual user to the mega-bandwidth cruncher.

[Jack Oughton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopsis: In the future you will probably have to trade your privacy for the convenience of a more streamlined commercial experience.

Lots of food for thought in this book.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't bother wasting your time. Very superficial. You can hear most of this stuff by reading average business news. Nothing dramatically insightful but tries hard to look that way.

[Hom Sack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something to think about. If nothing else, a good reminder of how we should conduct ourselves online.

[deleted d · Rating 2 out of 5]

Think twice about what you post online. I somewhat disagree :)