This is about LinkedIn
I just want to go on the record as saying that I am optimistic about LinkedIn. I’m busy and I’m over 40 and I have a blog — I do not have time for MySpace and Facebook. I don’t care one bit about them. People ask me all the time to be their “friend” in Facebook, and I usually just ignore them forever.
LinkedIn is different for me. Here is my profile. It’s a professional thing.
I have decided not to link to people I do not know personally. I’m being very, very choosy about whom I link with. So don’t be offended if I decline to link with you.
I have also decided not to link with students until after they get a job. If they go into journalism, of course I would like to stay in touch.
If you want to know more about LinkedIn, Guy Kawasaki wrote about 10 ways to use it to your advantage. Journalist and educator Sree Sreenivasan wrote (at the Poynter site) about how he uses it. A computer programmer named Jeff Atwood wrote about why he thinks it sucks.
I disagree with Atwood. The biggest benefit I see is that through LinkedIn it’s really easy to find everyone’s e-mail address and current job, because each one of us updates our own profile. If you are linked to me, you can find my best e-mail address right now. If you’re not linked to me, you can’t see my e-mail address in LinkedIn.
Recently I have been inviting professionals to be panelists at a conference. I have been on LinkedIn constantly, scouring the contact lists of all my own contacts. That’s what convinced me to write this post. LinkedIn has been a great asset in this.
Technorati tags: journalists | social networks
I’m with you that it’s a lot more important and worthwhile than facebook or myspace. I actually have a profile on all three…But I use them about the same amount of time.
Basically I only go on them when I get an email that someone has left me a message or sent an invitation or whatever. Then I get interested for about five minutes and I’ll do some inviting or messaging of my own. Then I get tired of it, and promptly forget about it until I get an email again.
February 15, 2007 at 5:18 pmI’m not a MySpace guy personally, but all of my old buds from UF are on Facebook. I do believe that having easy access to that old college network could prove to be as or more helpful than my LinkedIn network. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily apply to those-over-30…
February 15, 2007 at 9:39 pmI think if I were in my 20s, Facebook would be a big thing for me. LinkedIn doesn’t require any time from me at all — it’s a good tool, like my cell phone. Useful. But not something I’m using all the time. My students have a very different relationship with their cell phones. Same tool, different applications. LinkedIn has a lot of similarities to Facebook, but it’s not a hangout or a check-in place, the way Facebook is for young people.
February 15, 2007 at 11:08 pm