At a pitch somebody told me they had ‘Googled me’ and they couldn’t see anything about me.  I registered the hint of disappointment in their voice and their subconscious devaluation of my worth and social standing.  I took it in my stride, delivered the pitch of my life and didn’t get the work.

I wondered what would have happened if they had Googled me and seen my contribution to our understanding of youth, behaviour & adoption of new technologies, mobile, social media and life in general.  Instead they saw the other Wyndham Lewis.

About a year ago wyndhamlewis.com became available as a domain.  The main reason for the purchase was to have a personal email; I hadn’t considered the search experiment.  Then one day I decided to Google myself and found that my domain’s holding page was on the first page of the results.  The idea for the experiment took hold, without any effort and a relevant URL I could already get onto the home page of the search engines that address about 98% of the entire search market.

I saw an interview with Anthony Mayfield about his new book, Me and My Web Shadow.  It is all about visibility and management of personal branding on the web.  It was time to put the experiment into play and see:

  • whether it is possible for an individual to get to the top of the rankings
  • what is involved if there is competition for that space
  • what opportunities arise from it and whether it is worth the effort.

‘The Experiment’ strand will detail every input and output into the experiment.  So when I do something I’ll record it and then subsequently report on its effects.  This way I can sift through the wisdom of the digital community and people I work with at tmg and see what really does and doesn’t work.