LinkedIn elitism
Tags: Linkedin, business, social networkingLinkedIn is a powerful tool, as acknowleged by so many people around the globe. However, it seems the success of the site can lead to some exagerated… elitism. As an example, I’d like to mention this old story of a busy business man that won’t answer you except you’re registered on LinkedIn, have more than 10 connections and a minimum of 2 recommendations!
Excuse my criticism but I don’t agree at all with this point of view for at least the 2 following reasons:
First, in my humble opinion, I find it very elitist. I don’t have any problem with elitism state of mind but I’m not sure elitism is always the best routine to innovation nor to personal culture.
Second, I’m just curious about how many time it costs someone to search if these criterias have been respected by the person trying to contact him. I consider LI as a mean to speed up the business, not to take you more time considering if you will or won’t answer your emails.
To conclude, I agree with the point of Naina that “all of us are busy professionals and need to set some boundaries about our networking practices” but that this kind of method is perhaps not the best one. Personally, the way I chose to protect myself from abusive contacts resides in a simple warning at the bottom of my linkedin profile: “Always interested to extend my vision through new contacts. But like many people, time is my scarcest resource… Please send relevant opportunities.”
octobre 14th, 2006 à 18:38
Well, I guess I should have clarified in that story that I don’t agree with his strategy either. To say he wouldn’t even talk to you if you’re not on there is perhaps a bit excessive. I know some very smart, well-connected people who have opted out of it for any number of reasons.
But I could maybe see saying, “If you want me to invest, you need to join LinkedIn, because it’s an essential tool that will allow me, your other investors and advisors, and other people in our portfolio to help you more effectively.”
The point of me telling that story, though, is that if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur looking for investors, partners, customers and employees, that’s not the time to decide, “Well, I’m well connected already - I don’t need a tool like LinkedIn.” That’s perhaps not “suicide”, but certainly self-defeating.
octobre 15th, 2006 à 14:45
Hi Scott,
Thank you for this precisions about your own point of view.
It helped me make the distinction between your own and the one of Mr Allen.
Please keep us informed through your book and through your site about the best ways to use the net to enhance our business abilities.
Robin
novembre 20th, 2006 à 10:54
Hey Robin, Even with the warning at the bottom of your LinkedIn profile, I’m sure you must still be receiving many irrelevant enquiries! That’s the nature of online networking I suppose - impersonal - if you metup with some of your contacts and told them verbally that you did not like receiving calls that waste your time, you’d probably have a higher success ratio. Our e-mail inboxes are like voice mail - anyone can leave a message. I think the inboxes should be like out personal mobile phones - atleast we can decide whose call to take and who to classify as a time-waster!