DISQUS

jamie · 1 year ago

It certainly seems that the professional world is moving toward having social profiles at all levels. Just yesterday,I was alerted that the President of the software company I work for had created a Facebook profile. "Great, I'll add him!" I thought. Then, I began to second guess my initial response- largely due to my friends posting non-kosher comments about me and tagging me in incriminating photos. It's too hard to keep up with every comment and every tag. Although it concerns me, I am very pleased to see that such a broad spectrum of people are becoming involved in social networking.

Mark McLaren · 1 year ago

This is a very topical post, Nick.

Coincidentally, I was just about to send you a request to connect on LinkedIn when I saw the link to your blog post in your status update on Facebook. Twitter is down at the moment, so I can't check, but I'm guessing your status is linked to Twitter. Oh, the tangled web of gen Y social networking...

The reason it's topical, though, is that not everyone agrees that they need to have a LinkedIn or Facebook profile. I gave a short seminar this week called "Introducing Web 2.0" for business, and one attendee said to me afterwards, "Okay, I know there are a lot of people on LinkedIn, but why do I need to be on LinkedIn?"

This person is COO of one of the largest cities in the Northwest next to Seattle. He is a consummate pro when it comes to dealing with people and getting big jobs done on time.

I told him something like you said above: There's no reason not to have these profiles. But that's not really much of an argument. I would rather have some data to back up that assertion. It's my next project. Find evidence that you really do need to have a profile on LinkedIn and Facebook, or that if you do, your chances of realizing career goals, business objectives, etc., are much higher.

Karina Mikhli · 1 year ago

Although I agree that LinkedIn is necessary professionally, I don't think Facebook is at that level. Personally I have both profiles, but I wouldn't necessarily add professional contacts on Facebook, nor do I use it to network.

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira · 1 year ago

The only social networking site I would EXPECT to find Boomers on is LinkedIn. If they have kids and are responsible enough to want to check up on them, they might be on FB.

David Don · 1 year ago

I am exploring the utility of a social network at my company. My reasons for doing this are to increase the knowledge sharing within my organization (internal and external) and catalyze more self referencing with my market segments. Ultimately, it will have to come down to increasd $ for the company if we are going to spend resources on this. Linked in doesn't weem to meet these needs nor does facebook (especially if I don't want my competitors benefiting). I am looking at a service call Ning? Anybody know anything about this?