Reputation - who cares ?

I'm asked a lot about why reputation should matter to anyone. Most claim that they have no reputation of any value therefore it is only the egotistic, eccentric or paranoid that really benefit from understanding and protecting their reputations.

I was browsing Facebook last night and came upon readily accessible, but highly personal, information about complete strangers. My first reaction was to think how careless of them to use a forum in this way (details of someone's kid's names spring to mind) but it then struck me how easily reputations could be won and lost on sites like this. The landscape is totally wide open - comments about workplaces, brands, companies, each other are commonplace and each contribute to the mental picture someone has of the object/person in question.

And why does this matter ? Put quite simply because we're all both contributors and beneficiaries of the impact this has on the products and services we consume. You want a recommendation for a new mobile phone ? Post a question on Facebook.