I'm not the chef!

You may be aware that there is a chef whose name I share. My web site is http://michaelmina.info, and his is http://michaelmina.net. I mention this now for two reasons:

(photo courtesy of Antoine Smith)

(1) I've been thinking and reading a lot lately about online identity management, and in fact, I'm writing an ebook that deals with how to manage your online identity in order to create more career opportunities. The fact that Michael Mina the chef and I both share a name dilutes my online identity because, as of now, he has achieved more success and notoriety as a chef than I have as a writer. But the kicker is this:

(2) I actually got an email the other day from a woman who dined at one of his restaurants in Detroit. She assumed that I was the chef and proceeded to tell me about her dining experience.

I'm fairly certain that this is just a foretaste of the online identity confusion we can expect to see in the future. I'm going to create a topic for this blog called "The Other Michael Mina" to deal with this issue specifically, and one called "Online identity management" to deal with related topics generally.