To LinkIn or not to LinkIn that is the Question
I recently received an invitation to join someones LinkedIn professional network. The person who asked me had organised a very successful and enjoyable tech event in limerick which I attended. I assume he got my email address off the sign in sheet because other people who were at the event also got invited to join his LinkedIn network despite not knowing the guy except for this one event.
Now this makes me ask a couple of questions,
- What value is there in these professional Linked in Networks if you’re linked with people you know nothing about?
- Should you have any expectation about where your email address ends up when you sign into events?
As I’m not a linked in member I don’t know the answer to question 1 perhaps someone else can answer this for me. Maybe I’m being overly cynical but I fail to see the value for anyone in being linked to someone who you don’t know and who doesn’t know you. It’s beginning to seem to me that all these social networking things judge you by the number of people you are linked to rather than the quality or even relevance of these links.
For question 2 I have a couple of opinions. I would expect that the email address I use for signing in to events should only be used for event notifications and not be used by the organiser to bolster his linkedIn profile. I’m not sure about the etiquete of this type of thing but I assume my details don’t get passed on to anyone. At least in this case it was only the organiser. Perhaps I’m being a bit naive but the next time I go to any event I’ll use the email address I use for online crap to sign in and not my primary email address.
I suppose it could be worse I could have been poked by facebook or befriended by Bebo.
Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against this guy, I just don’t know him and he doesn’t know me.
Anyway who would want to be linked to me. After all I’ve only just started blogging and I don’t really know where this blog is going to go. I’ve also got no real aspirations to start any type of tech company at the moment so I don’t see the benifit of a LinkedIn profile. Am I missing the point?
You never know I might change my mind about this sort of thing once I get to know a bit more about it.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I would perceive LinkedIn as more a business networking site rather than a social networking site such as facebook; essentially its just a fancy business card holder. Though many people I know use it for linking to people they know in work.
I think that people being asked to sign in to an event should be made aware of how their sign in details will be used. Especially, if these details are going to be held electronically.