I'm just about ready to link out of Linked In

I must receive five or more 'Linked In" requests every day. In case you've somehow escaped this pesky, but prevalent pestilence, Linked In positions itself as the 'Facebook' or 'MySpace' of the adult business world.

Like the hot social networking sites, Linked In asks participants to create a home page that provides their name, title and affiliation. Users then send e-mail notices to anyone and everyone they've ever 'touched' in their business or personal lives.

The result is a steady stream of 'invitations' from the vaguely familiar to the complete stranger. The sender asks you to click on the invite bar and become Linked in. Ok. But why?

Some people have 350 or more Linked In friends. Others, like me, have far fewer.

Some herald Linked In as the next great rainmaking and networking tool. Our firm's crack strategy consultant, for example, proselytizes on the technology's capability at every opportunity. He believes, because of its 'six degrees of separation' Linked In enables us to create 'personal' connections with even the largest or most remote prospective client (i.e. Just plug in the name of the prospect organization, do a Linked In search, and you'll see that John who knows Jane once worked with Abdul who dated Akbar who sits two cubes away from Nadia, the prospective client decision-maker).

Maybe. But who has the time to play those games? And, just because I know someone who knows someone, will that give me any real advantage?

I'm a big proponent of the Web 2.0 world. But, so far, Linked In has done absolutely nothing except cost me precious time responding to people who've asked me to be their Linked In friends.

Unless I can figure out a tangible benefit soon, this blogger will be linked out of Linked In.

Comments

[Bubbles]

These "cyber buddy" sites are for kids. Not busy, intelligent adults.

[Ed Moed]

Hate to say it, but the reality is that most of these tools aren't really consumer friendly for a CEO or busy senior executive yet.

The cost/benefit ratio for you or me, or any other senior executive to stay online and "play" with these networking tools just doesn't work. There are a few tech savvy senior execs who I read about (and love to use this stuff). But, it ain't me either...at this point.

[Thomas Graham]

LinkedIn has it's pros and cons, you've clearly articulated the latter. I share your disbelief at the number of disconnected connections that are attempted -- and have to admit that when I first logged on to the site the mere act of marrying up preferred databases caused me to send out more than my share of false-starts. However, I've also found it to be helpful in preparing for further development of relationships I make through the normal course of business. If we're counting on LinkedIn to be the rainmaker of our firms, we're going about business relationship building all wrong. The fact is the keys to success lie within providing value to the relationship.

I thought you might appreciate Thom Singer's thoughts on this subject as well...

http://thomsinger.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-on-my-linkedin-rant.html

Enjoy the blog, keep up the fantastic work.

Thomas

[Annette Abell]

How odd that I stumbled upon this blog entry when just yesterday I asked a fellow LinkIn user how to actually USE LinkedIn to make my life easier. She had no idea. I suppose I could look to my LI network when I need an opinion on something or for insights into the inner workings of a company, however, the people I would seek such counsel from (and who would gladly accept my call) are people who I don't need LI to maintain the relationship with. Hmmm...I look forward to someone sharing a practical application that doesn't duplicate my Outlook Contacts.

[Rob Amberg]

RepMan - kind of surprised on your stance on this one. I am a fairly frequent LinkedIn user, and by frequent I mean maybe 10-15 minutes per day, tops. It provides an easy way to make an otherwise complicated introduction. It doesn't replace anything but the cold call. And to me, that's priceless.

[Trish]

I do have to say when someone introduced me to linkedin a year ago, I couldn't get into it. Then magically, a few months ago, a recent agency-turn-freelancer invited me, reminding me of my registration. I am now pretty grateful for reviving it so I can always keep track of my PR buddies which are more and more moving jobs so frequently and even across the globe. I now always have their most recent e-mail address as well as knowing how they are doing.

[Trish]

I do have to say when someone introduced me to linkedin a year ago, I couldn't get into it. Then magically, a few months ago, a recent agency-turn-freelancer invited me, reminding me of my registration. I am now pretty grateful for reviving it so I can always keep track of my PR buddies which are more and more moving jobs so frequently and even across the globe. I now always have their most recent e-mail address as well as knowing how they are doing.

[Trish]

I do have to say when someone introduced me to linkedin a year ago, I couldn't get into it. Then magically, a few months ago, a recent agency-turn-freelancer invited me, reminding me of my registration. I am now pretty grateful for reviving it so I can always keep track of my PR buddies which are more and more moving jobs so frequently and even across the globe. I now always have their most recent e-mail address as well as knowing how they are doing.

[Steve Cody]

Rob, glad to hear it. I'm totally clueless as to how you're making your LinkedIn experience satisfactory (and, so are most of the others who've posted comments on the blog). So, let me ask a question: you're connecting with prospective clients via LinkedIn and they don't still see it as a 100 percent cold call? Why is that?

[Sam Ford]

Hey Steve, I read your post about LinkedIn over the weekend and found it quite interesting. A friend of mine just took a position as the director of marketing for LinkedIn, and I have been using the site for a little over a year now. Like most people, I joined because many of my contacts were, and because I started getting invitations through the site, but I have found it useful for a few purposes, most directly keeping up with occasional business contacts who end up switching companies, and e-mail addresses, and who would have become lost in the ether otherwise.

Your post led to me writing about the issue as well over at our Consortium's blog at C3, at http://www.convergenceculture.org/weblog/

Ed's comments raise some interesting questions about value to whom, though, and I think your point about the efforts being active in any way in a social network requires is very true. It is misleading to claim these sites "save us time."