Are your ears burning? Chances are good that they should be, because you're being talked about right now. Have you done a Google Search on your name lately? Or your company's name? Do it now, I'll wait....

Were at least a few of those results about you (and not somebody else with the same name)? Did you know that you were listed on those sites? And even if the results were about another person with your name, consider the potential damage to your own reputation if that person isn't exactly an upstanding member of society. Could your friends and customers tell the difference?

Information about you is already public knowledge. Probably - and hopefully - not your bank account numbers, social security number or your important usernames and passwords. But it's likely that, even without your participation, someone has mentioned you online, perhaps on a user group or forum or in a blog post, or included your name on a club or organization website. Asking to be removed from those online references is unlikely to be successful, because:

1. They're too busy to delete information from web sites or other online sources;
2. They don't want to, feeling they have the First Amendment right to talk about you;
3. The original author can't be found;
4. The information has been cached by Google or other search engines, and has reached data nirvana (it's eternal!).

So what's a person to do? If we can't get others to stop talking about us, how do we defend ourselves online?

The key is to control the conversation. Accept that your business and your professional and personal reputation are going to fair game for others online, and be aggressive in establishing yourself as an authority on the one person you know best - YOU. Here's a checklist of ideas to stay one step ahead of the social media revolution, so you can put these tools to use for you in your efforts to control the online conversation about yourself.

• Learn about personal social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and consider establishing a presence there for yourself and your business.
• Get connected through business social networking sites like LinkedIn and XING. These sites have become an online alternative to the "black book" or Rolodex, especially among professionals who depend on a large number of contacts for their business success, such as salespeople, recruiters and purchasing professionals. Of course, every business owner, manager or anyone looking to move up professionally can benefit from a strong personal network, so these sites are worth considering for all but the most isolated.
• Do a regular check of yourself and your company or organization on Google, at the least. Yahoo! and Ask.com are also worth checking. Know what results others are seeing if they search for you online.
• Consider starting a business or a personal blog. Regular writing about your professional and personal accomplishments will help establish your control over your online reputation. Yes, it can be difficult at first, especially if you've never been much of a diary-keeper or if you are naturally shy. But if you can set the tone about what people read about you online, and you'll have a ready method to respond to things other people say about you.

You did a search about yourself earlier. Now consider that anyone else typing your name or your company's name into Google are seeing the same results. If they're making a decision about doing business with you, are those results going to influence that decision positively or negatively?