As part of my business plan, I decided that I would become established as an expert on the Internet dealing with the Boomer generation. I launched off on that quest. All was going well for a while until I googled "John Howe". I found that the first several Google pages were full of information on John Howe, but alas, it was not yours truly.

The John Howe who occupies the first several pages of Google is an illustrator from Vancouver, BC, Canada. He is best known for his illustrations based on J. R. R. Tolkien's worlds (Middle-Earth). His website is http://www.john-howe.com. He was the lead illustrator for the very popular "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy.

You know the old saying, "If you are going to have to fight a battle, choose your own battlefield". Well, my parents took care of that for me by giving me two middle initials. V and W. When people ask me what it stands for, I keep a straight face and tell them, "Volkswagen". Actually it is Vernon Wallace. My parents were Canadian and having two middle names is more common in Canada than in the US.

Anyway, I chose to adopt the full name, John V. W. Howe as my Internet Name, since that sets me apart. I even had to go through special procedures with some sites (Ezine Articles, etc.) to ask them to go back and change my registered name from John Howe to John V.W. Howe.

It was worth the effort since if you google "John V W Howe" you will find that I have no competition on the search engines for that form of my name.

I pass this along to you if you are trying to brand yourself as part of your marketing plan. Do your planning and research first (which I did not) so you do not have to go back and correct prior actions like I did. Check out Google to see who has claim to your name's space and use your initial or some variation to make yourself unique.