Wet cement and personal walls

Today I walked to a conference session on a fairly new sidewalk.

Along the way a block of sidewalk cement had a vulgar word inscribed, obviously during the wet cement phase. Forever inscribed on the sidewalk, or at least until the next replacement.

Why do people do these things?

Somehow I started thinking beyond wet cement signatures and other graffiti. We all have so many opportunities to write in "wet cement."

Wet cement comes in many forms - blogs, Facebook walls, our own body (tattoos), emails, YouTube videos, mobile phone videos, handwritten letters, physical reactions to others (think traffic jam behavior, or when people cut in line), etc.

What will we write in our wet cement? Nowadays whatever we say or write cannot be taken back.

A person may post a picture on Facebook for one minute and then decide to remove it. During that time, I can save it down to my computer. There is no taking it back. And, I can share it. At any time. At any place. Sometimes years later when it could actually hurt your career, relationships, etc.

More so than anytime in history, it is important to make sure that we protect the wet cement that we can control about ourselves. Call it personal brand, self-image, or whatever. It is more important than ever. It can come back to bite you or become something that helps you live up to your own online image.

Anyway, so many thoughts from a vulgar sidewalk posting. Perhaps I should start listening a little better to this conference session. Oops!