The first question comes from the prospect's CFO: How can your CEO guarantee his presence on multi-year implementation, when his tenure in his prior two jobs was only 12 months each? The next zinger comes from their CIO: When she asked questions about your much-touted ‘strategic alliances' that had been announced a few years prior - how is it that no one in your company knew anything about those ‘strategic partners'? Then their general counsel asks: How did that wonderful ‘success story' customer of a few years ago wind up as a brief mention as in "reached a settlement" in the ‘Prior and Current Litigation' section of your RFP?

It's turning out to be the review committee from hell - and you are wishing you had called in sick - because now you are.

What happened? Were you set up by your competition? Was your CEO's ex-spouse dating the prospect's CIO? Who dropped the bomb?

In all likelihood, it could be a self-inflicted wound. In other words - by not paying attention to how you have disseminated information over the years, your company has seeded the web with a complete dossier of virtual ‘insider information' that has come back to haunt you. And it is very easy to assemble it all. To paraphrase Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone: "You've just entered The Google Zone".

Here's what probably happened - like most companies, you touted everything and anything on press releases that were sent out on the wireservices, including every executive appointment, every ‘strategic alliance' and in some cases, jumping the gun on who you selected for ‘customer case studies' - before the relationship had completely matured. None of this is unusual or unique - it's done all the time.

Unfortunately, now that you are looking in the rearview mirror - you wish that some (if not most) of that stuff wasn't out there. But all those publications (including the wireservices) have archived it - and it pops up when they are 'Googled' - either on your company name or the name of the executive in question.

But what can you do about it, especially moving forward? On the one hand - you want market visibility, on the other hand - things change over time and you may not want to spend a lot of time explaining past history. Is there an acceptable compromise?

For the most part - there is - but it requires that before any information is distributed, it is reviewed from two dimensions: how long you want it to be available, and how much control you will have over it. This is done by evaluating everything you put out in terms of the nature of the content, the timeliness of the content, and the method of dissemination. By thinking ahead - you can limit the amount of damage done by a thorough "Google" of your company and its executives.

• Nature of the Content - Is it an ‘evergreen' topic, or can the event or item possibly turn sour in the future? If so, but it has value now, might you want to be less than specific about the details, or conversely, more specific? Instead of a ‘strategic alliance' perhaps say that you entered into a joint bid on a proposal - it's done all the time. And if it doesn't go anywhere - that happens all the time, too. The only people in your company that would know about it are the ones who were involved. Conversely, a ‘strategic alliance' implies more - and negatively so if it goes nowhere (as most of them do, or rather, don't.) An ‘evergreen' topic may be your unique technology or service. For example - I recently visited a former client's web site where I had done their public relations program - and they still had most of the material posted - four years later! That aspect of the work had been ‘evergreen'- and read as good today as it did then. It can be done.

• Timeliness of the Content - What do you estimate the shelf life of the announcement is? Ego aside, after just a few months - no one really cares that you have a new CEO. But if you have five CEOs in four years - that's news in itself - the kind your competitors like to use to create FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about your stability as a company and a vendor. Also - most press releases should only hang around for about 12 months. Easy to do on your web site - not so easy to do once they are out there on someone else's site on the web. I've read archived press releases that go back to the beginning of the Internet (mid-90's.)

• Method of Dissemination - this is perhaps the most important consideration - and the one that received the least attention. Once material is disseminated, you lose control. Conversely - if it is only posted on your web site (which in fact is the first place most people and search engines will go for information on your company) - once you remove it - it disappears from view (except for a slight lag until the search engines update their scan of your pages.) Those searchers include the media, potential executive candidates and employees, investors - just about anyone. Something else to consider is that many publications have a fee-based archive system (such as the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times) - and their archives are not searched by Google (but are by specialty search engines like Infotrac.) So instead of sending your press releases to them shotgun-fashion via wireservice - send them individually by email. Also, specialty, subscription-only newsletters are not 'Googled' - and tend to have richer information content and hence higher readership among your desired audience. In other words - you might want to have a specialty media list for email distribution of certain press releases (executive appointments, customer wins, etc.)

The most important aspects of controlling your information are to think about what you are sending out, and then how you plan to distribute it. Plain and simple - your web site is your best tool for that - and the one you have most control over.

Rather oddly - and I say this from a perspective of reviewing dozens of web sites each week - I've found that typically company web sites are the most poorly used tool for both conveying and ‘securing' company information. What that tells me is that the company is not thinking in terms of ‘Google information security'.

Just make sure that your company isn't one of those - and that you don't venture into The Google Zone - when you least expect it.

Here's what the Twilight Zone is: ... (it) delves into the odd, the bizarre, the unexpected. The Twilight Zone is a wondrous land of the very different. No luggage is required for the trip. All that the audience need bring is imagination.
- Rod Serling, November 7, 1959 (TV Guide)