Chapter 1: Sorry Dad, I'm Building My Own Brand
There's a specific kind of introduction you get when you grow up as someone's kid in a small town.
"Oh, you're Kenny's son!"
Not "Nice to meet you." Not "What do you do?" Just immediate recognition that you exist in relation to someone else. You're a satellite. A footnote. The younger version of a person people already know and like.
My dad, Kenny Kane, worked in the operating room at a hospital on Long Island for most of my childhood. He wasn't a surgeon or a nurse. He was support staff. The person who wheeled you from your hospital room to the operating room and back after surgery. The last face you saw before anesthesia, the first face you saw when you woke up.
He had this gift. He could talk to anyone. Make them smile. Put them at ease in one of the most vulnerable moments of their life. He was the guy who'd crack a joke right before they put the mask on your face. The one who'd remember your name, ask about your kids, make you feel like a person instead of a patient.
People loved him.
And because people loved him, they loved telling me about it.
• • •
"I know your dad."
I heard that phrase hundreds of times growing up. At the grocery store. At the gas station. At school events. Someone would learn my name, make the connection, and immediately light up.
"Kenny Kane? I know your dad! He's the best. He took care of my mom when she had her surgery. Made her laugh right before they put her under. What a guy."
And I'd smile. Nod. Say something like, "Yeah, he's great." Because he was. He is.
But here's the thing about always being someone's kid: it doesn't matter what you do. You could build companies, write books, run national organizations. You're still "Kenny's son" to the people who knew him first.
I wasn't called Junior. I'm not a Junior. But people assumed I was. They'd introduce me as Kenny Jr., or they'd just call me "little Kenny," even when I was six feet tall and running a nonprofit with a quarter-million followers.
It wasn't malicious. It was just the reality of sharing a name with someone who'd already claimed it in the minds of everyone around you.
• • •
When I was younger, I didn't think much about it. That's just how the world worked. Your parents existed. You existed in their shadow. Eventually you'd move away, build your own life, and the shadow would shrink.
But the internet changed that equation.
The internet doesn't care if you moved to a different state. It doesn't care if you built a career in a completely different field. If you share a name with someone else, you're competing for the same digital real estate whether you want to or not.
And I didn't just share a name with my dad.
I shared it with:
A comedian in Los Angeles (the one who owns KennyKane.com)
A rapper in Memphis
A football player
Multiple other professionals scattered across LinkedIn
And, inexplicably, a fictional character from a novel I'd never read
When someone Googled "Kenny Kane," they got all of us. A blended average. A disambiguation problem with no clear answer.
Google didn't know which Kenny Kane you were looking for, so it showed you everyone and let you sort it out.
That's not how you build a career in the digital age.
• • •
Here's what I want you to understand: this chapter isn't about my dad.
It's about what happens when you realize that being known in relation to someone else (your parent, your company, your city, your industry) isn't enough anymore. You need to be known for what you do, not just who you're connected to.
My dad built a beautiful life. He helped thousands of people through some of the scariest moments they'd ever face. He made a difference. He's proud of the work he did, and he should be.
But he never needed a digital presence. He worked in a hospital. He interacted with people face-to-face. His reputation was built on handshakes and eye contact and showing up every day with the same steady kindness.
I don't have that luxury.
I run companies remotely. I write for people I've never met. I consult with organizations across the country. I need to be discoverable by people who don't know my dad, who don't live on Long Island, who will never run into me at the grocery store.
I need Google to know which Kenny Kane I am. And I need it to tell other people clearly and confidently.
That's not vanity. That's infrastructure.
• • •
Let me tell you about the moment I realized this was a real problem.
It was 2015. I was the COO of Stupid Cancer, a national nonprofit for young adults affected by cancer. We'd just finished a big campaign. Press coverage. Social media buzz. We were on a roll.
I Googled myself to see if any of the media mentions were showing up in search results.
The first result was the comedian. Second result was LinkedIn profiles of other Kenny Kanes I'd never heard of. Third result was the rapper. Fourth result was me, but only because the search had pulled in a mention from a Stupid Cancer press release.
If you didn't already know I worked at Stupid Cancer, you wouldn't have found me at all.
Meanwhile, Matthew Zachary --- my friend and CEO at Stupid Cancer --- had a massive online presence. Media appearances. A personal website that clearly articulated who he was and what he did. Clear, unambiguous search results that said, "This is who Matthew Zachary is. This is what he does. This is why he matters."
As I mentioned in the Prologue, Matthew and I had this friendly competition about online clout. He was winning. And it wasn't because he was better at his job. It was because he understood something I didn't yet:
The internet rewards clarity.
If Google knows exactly who you are, it shows you first. If it's confused, it shows everyone and hopes the user figures it out.
I was making Google confused.
• • •
This is where most people make a critical mistake.
They assume the solution is to out-compete everyone else with the same name. Post more on social media. Write more blog posts. Build a bigger following. Drown out the other Kenny Kanes with sheer volume.
That doesn't work.
I know because I tried it. I posted on LinkedIn. I wrote articles. I spoke at conferences. I did all the things you're supposed to do to "build your personal brand."
And it barely moved the needle.
Because I was treating a structural problem like a content problem.
The issue wasn't that I wasn't producing enough content. The issue was that Google didn't have enough structured information to confidently differentiate me from the other Kenny Kanes.
I needed to teach Google who I was in a language it actually understood.
Not blog posts. Not social media updates. Not thought leadership articles.
Structured data.
That's what this book is about. Not competing with my dad, or the comedian, or the rapper, or anyone else who shares my name.
It's about building digital infrastructure that makes disambiguation automatic.
• • •
Let's talk about what's actually at stake here.
If you have a unique name, you might be reading this thinking, "This doesn't apply to me."
You're wrong.
Disambiguation isn't just a problem for people with common names. It's a problem for anyone who needs to be found by the right people at the right time.
Maybe you're a consultant trying to land corporate clients who've never heard of you.
Maybe you're an author who needs to show up when someone searches for books in your genre.
Maybe you're a nonprofit leader competing for attention in a crowded space.
Maybe you're a job seeker trying to stand out when recruiters Google your name.
Maybe you're building a business and you need credibility signals that tell potential clients you're the real deal.
In every single one of these scenarios, you need Google (and increasingly, AI systems like ChatGPT and Claude) to understand exactly who you are, what you do, and why you matter.
If they're confused, you're invisible.
If they're clear, you're discoverable.
That's the difference between being "Kenny's son" and being Kenny Kane, CEO and author.
• • •
Here's the part that took me years to accept:
My dad doesn't need any of this.
He's retired now. He's proud of me. But Knowledge Panels, Wikidata entries, AI-first search --- none of it applies to the life he built.
And that's fine. He doesn't need to.
His legacy is the thousands of people he helped through surgery. The families he comforted. The scared patients he made smile. That's real. That's human. That carries weight in ways that no amount of SEO ever will.
But my legacy is different.
I build systems. I write books. I lead organizations remotely. I need to be found by people who don't live in my town, who don't know my family, who will judge me based on what Google tells them in the first three seconds of a search.
That's not better or worse than what my dad did. It's just different.
And it requires a different strategy.
• • •
So here's what I want you to take from this chapter:
1. Disambiguation isn't about ego. It's about infrastructure.
You're not building a personal brand because you're narcissistic. You're building it because you need to be discoverable in a world where attention is currency and invisibility is death.
2. You can't out-content a structural problem.
If Google is confused about who you are, posting more on LinkedIn won't fix it. You need to give Google structured, machine-readable data that makes disambiguation automatic.
3. Sharing a name (with a parent, a celebrity, a fictional character, or just another professional) is a solvable problem.
The solution isn't to compete. It's to clarify. To build digital infrastructure that tells search engines and AI systems exactly who you are and what you do.
4. You don't need anyone's permission to define yourself.
I didn't need my dad's blessing to build my own brand. I didn't need the comedian to give up KennyKane.com. I didn't need Wikipedia to declare me "notable."
I just needed to understand how the systems actually work and use them strategically.
That's what the rest of this book will teach you.
• • •
In the next chapter, we'll talk about why a static resume website isn't enough. Why "having a web presence" is table stakes but not a strategy. And why most people's approach to personal branding is optimized for 2015, not 2026.
But before we get there, I want you to sit with this:
If someone Googles your name right now, what do they find?
Is it clear? Is it accurate? Is it you?
Or is it a blended average of everyone who shares your name, leaving the searcher to figure out which one matters?
That's the disambiguation problem.
And if you're reading this book, you already know it's real.
• • •