Your Direct Report in Footie Pajamas

My work e-mail is banned from Facebook forever.

The Maritime Aquarium's first foray into Facebook was led by a summer intern. Although our MySpace page was working well, everyone said we had to move to Facebook. A young, digitally native, summer intern assured me she knew how.

It all went swimmingly until Facebook sent a nasty e-mail and suspended our account that fall.

Turns out our intern had set the Aquarium up as though it was a person, not an entity.

I finally got it all straightened out. Ever try to reach someone at Facebook on the telephone? Fortunately, all was forgiven. We created a page, not a person. Facebook even migrated our followers, converting them from friends into fans. Only my work e-mail could not be reset.

Facebook has pursued this policy in ensuing years. And the upshot is that you can manage a page for your company, but only from your personal Facebook space.

Commingling business and personal personalities creates consternation.

I knew my Facebook personal profile was no longer personal when my first board member sent a friend request.

There is an awkward moment or two when you and your direct reports “like” each other on Facebook. This post's title comes from such an instance. There was an awkward moment when I chose not to “like” a photo of one of my workers in her pajamas.

With a uniquely spelled, and therefore eminently Googleable, last name, I have been cognizant from the start of my world wide web involvement that my personal postings were essentially public and must therefore jibe with my professional goals. (You will find only two Chris Loynds in your search, me and a psychiatrist in East Saint Louis.)

Digital natives sometimes need more caution in their postings.

When I was hiring a new social media person, in the job posting I requested links to each applicant's Facebook. Linkedin, Twitter and other feeds.

You can be sure I snooped the finalists. Anyone with lots of posts about how glad they were it was Friday and how much they hated Mondays went to the bottom of the pile. Likewise I looked for any lack of discretion in posts, especially in photos or in statements. Curse words? Inappropriate innuendo?

One of my interview questions was, “What can you tell me about me?” I was disappointed at how few applicants had taken the time to investigate me online before their interview.

Perhaps most pilloried is JustineSacco. Just prior to boarding a plane to South Africa she tweeted a racist comment to her 174 followers. Her comment was picked up by digital media outlets and spread like wildfire. While Sacco flew unawares, without an Internet connection, on her 12 hour flight, the rest of the digital world speculated how such a tweet would surely cost a PR professional her job. Soon #HasJustineLandedYet was trending on Twitter as the worldwide digital crowd anticipated Sacco's sacking.

Upon landing, Sacco deleted her Internet presence, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram included. She issued a public apology. But screen shots last forever. She lost her job.

For better and worse, shared media is just that, shared, worldwide, and sometimes with incredible speed.

I do acknowledge that morals change with the passage of time. The second George Bush likely would have gotten away with saying “kick ass,” but his father had to scramble to explain himself for saying, “We tried to kick a little ass last night,” after the 1980 presidential debates. I still bristle at use of “suck,” but acknowledge nowadays it really isn't seen as anything more than vernacular.

One key fact for digital natives to remember is that many people higher up the corporate ladder came from earlier times and have a different sense of what is, and is not, appropriate. Whether you think them prudish or not, they're still deciding upon your career and future.

So go gently into that next post. Think twice before sharing that photo or tweet with the whole world. It may be your personal life, but could reflect on your professional life as well.