In May 2010, an event known as Digital Death Day linked together social networks, data management and… death.

According to the dedicated website, digitaldeathday.com, the event aimed to bring awareness to the fact that we leave behind a trail of digital footprints that continue to live on long after we've passed away. The site suggests that these 'digital assets—things like our Facebook and Twitter accounts, should be passed on to our heirs, thought most often, they are not. On a more serious note, Digital Death Day is a reminder that many of us leave behind tangibly valuable assets such as domain names and features of online games.

I was reading about Digital Death Day in a state of shock and disbelief. Have we really reached a time where we need to write a "digital will," specifying who gets our Facebook account, our tagged pictures and uploaded mobile videos? And what about all those personal, handpicked collections of iPhone applications purchased from the iTunes store.

This got me thinking about the whole concept of "Brand Me." I realised that the things we create online in an effort to reflect our personalities to the outside world, are becoming more and more a crucial part of our personal and unique "brand image."

The concept of "Brand Me" in the online world has unleashed basic needs in entirely new ways. Humans' deep need to be interesting to others, to be loved, admired, unique and recognized can now be satisfied by developing attractive online profiles and personalities, which, if successful, will attract friends, followers, if not a whole set of audience.

But if we want to create a legacy, something that will transcend our lives long after we are gone, we should start paying more attention to our individual online branding. We should not only ensure that our MySpace pages, blogs, personal websites and other social media accounts accurately reflect our personal brands—we also need to think about how our brands will be protected and maintained after we've travelled this journey called life.

Going a bit further, how does this fit within the online security dilemma, and how do we protect our private information from being misused by others? How do we balance the desire to create a memorable "branded digital asset", with the need for online safety and security?