By Senior Editor – Kris Smith (@croncast)

I’m hesitant to use the term ‘brand’ since it is overused right now and a bit nebulous, especially when it comes to humans. I guess if your name was a brand then it would fit . . . but there thousands of brands with the same name, so maybe not.

Over the last few years with the rise of social everything online many people have arrived without the experience of the growing pains that made the market ready for these sites. With that, the newbies have arrived at the front gate to deliver gems on Facebook like, “In hell right now, that would be work!” Way to go genius. Don’t get run over by the forklift you rode in on.

It has been my desire for years that there were be some licensing that has to happen before people could hop online and make the same mistakes that people were making a decade ago. An education center would be fitting – like community annex night courses. Even cabbies gotta go to school.

I thought that since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and you might engage face to face with some people that aren’t so savvy, that you could share some words of internet wisdom with them. It. Is. Your. Job. To save them. From. Themselves. Share these of course after you have helped them remove 30 GB of kitty photos from the desktop of their Windows Me eMachine. Okay?

1. Don’t use Facebook or MySpace or Twitter at work
2. Don’t talk about your boss on the computer
3. Don’t ever upload pictures of yourself or Mom drunk
4. Don’t put pictures of grandma drunk on the internet
5. Don’t take photos of anything naked and upload it
6. Don’t threaten the bully from your 8th grade class on Facebook. We know he didn’t deserve to succeed in life but he did. Let it go.
7. Don’t contact anyone that you hooked up back in the day that Mom knows. That goes for you too Mom. Forget they exist and use your memories remember their sweet smell and freak moves.
8. Don’t tell your neighbor that his spouse is cheating on Facebook. Just don’t.
9. Don’t type anything into your computer that would cause Santa to leave you a lump of coal
10. Don’t evah, evah, evah upload a photo of your cat to the internet and caption it. You will never get hired for a job again – especially if I am the head of HR

That’s it. Now you can spend your Thanksgiving in peace after you lay down the law to your in-laws about ‘Managing Yourself Online’. ‘Cuz the internet is a job.

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