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LinkedIn: Octopus’s garden? I’ve been receiving a few invitations from friends on LinkedIn and have been responding positively, because I’m a positive person. I’ll be interested to see what LI adds or doesn’t to my life. Networking with trusted friends and colleagues is a great idea, but I’m not so sure about the “walled garden” concept that LI seems to represent. It feels somehow inherently clunky and restrictive. FaceBook handles that side of my life already. Of course LinkedIn protects you against a tsunami of spam and sales pitches flooding your inbox. I find, however, I can just say no or ignore those reasonably easily. The point of LI is to set up significant working relationships and, in my line of job, many of those are set up anyway, in contrast to, say, the work of an IT freelance. Anyway, I’m up for seeing what it does for me. Adopt adapt, improve. I’d be interested to hear stories about the uses and value of LinkedIn (email me at email@example.com).

Many thanks to those who responded in various ways. Including Scott Gunn:

LinkedIn was useful in my tech life for finding folks. But that was before facebook took off. Now I think it's mostly useful just for biz types who are scared off by fb.

LinkedIn is a rather odd animal. For example, it has decided that everyone in High Wycombe or Aylesbury actually comes from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, and won't allow you to say where you do come from. If it doesn’t matter where you are, why bother? If it does, why not allow people to put the correct location? Welcome to Clunk City, Arizona...

Octopus’ Garden quilt h/t Deb Richardson Glenn Gutmacher said...

If you're a recruiter, LinkedIn is invaluable. For clergy, it might be more useful if you: 1) wanted to find contacts at religious book publishers beyond the ones you know and/or have rejected a manuscript, 2) find contacts at non-competitive community organizations (yes, you can use it to search in your local metro area) who can help you get the word out about church-affiliated events (e.g., spiritual music concerts open to public) or initiatives (e.g., job-seeker support group meetings), etc.

Glenn Gutmacher , JobMachine / Arbita ACES

2 April 2009 at 19:00 
I prefer software and social networking sites that do one thing and do it well, rather than ones that do everything and do it badly.

Facebook scored over MySpace because it was simple and uncluttered. Then they introduced "apps" and I have hundreds of requests that I haven't looked at from people who want to throw sheep at me and things like that.

So I prefer Linked In's relative simplicity. It's for keeping in touch with people you actually know. When they start throwing sheep, I'll lose interest.

3 April 2009 at 05:43 Archbeship Anthony said...

I like facebook, I still use it, I dont go in that often,. There is this Game on there which I occasionally go on to, I was invited to it by a Friend, and have invited some of my other friends to it, but reaaly I just want to see make contact with and see what others are doing rather than playing Games on it.

23 March 2011 at 22:29