Today I take a break from local environmental issues to talk about things I love and things I hate about LinkedIn, as well as Facebook and other online networking platforms. You can blame Jason Alba for putting me up to it.
Things I love
First, LinkedIn does really provide a fantastic way to accomplish the online part of your networking. It’s already well populated, so that you’re almost sure to be able to gather 20 or so contacts as soon as you sign on by going through your address book, your Rolodex, and your old yearbooks.
LinkedIn gives you a chance to introduce yourself on your own terms. You’re not responding to a job ad when you prepare your LinkedIn profile; you’re free to put the emphasis on the things that interest you. You can make your sales pitch to thousands of people without being intrusive or rude. Moreover, with the new applications such as the Google and SlideShare presentations, the WordPress blog feed, the Amazon reading list, etc., you can provide information about yourself that would never show up on a resume, a business card, or a quals brochure. The key here is that you can show substance, not just use pretty words to imply it.
LinkedIn is an excellent follow-up to a first contact. After I have met new people, I like to ask them if I can add them to my LinkedIn contacts. It helps remind them of our conversation, and if they agree — and they almost always do — they will henceforth see my name every few days whenever I update my status or post a new entry.
LinkedIn has a great interface with Outlook. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a fan of the Microsoft Office Suite in general and Outlook in particular, but LinkedIn and Outlook make an excellent symbiotic combination. For extra oompf, tie into JibberJobber and really start managing your contacts. The three together are more than the sum of their parts.
Things I hate
LinkedIn’s interface is clunky and already outdated. The company has made laudable efforts this fall to catch up with the times, and as mentioned above I really appreciate that, but the site continues to be outdistanced by Facebook in terms of looks, ease of use, availability of applications, and customization.
Speaking of applications, LinkedIn’s applications are buggy. Perhaps it’s because they’re brand new, but LinkedIn’s apps have a tendency to go kerphlooey all of a sudden. Now, this is somewhat true on Facebook but not nearly as much — a small fraction of the problems on LinkedIn, really, and yet Facebook has apps up the wazoo, and more constantly being developed. LinkedIn has 10, count’em, 10, versus the hundreds in Facebook, and they still tank, or crash various browsers.
I’ve seen people who say they don’t want apps on LinkedIn because they don’t want it to be another Facebook. I agree that I sure don’t want games and “virtual gifts” and other distractions on LinkedIn, but I do want applications that are useful in a professional context.
LinkedIn’s groups and discussions are full of inane or spammy material. In this environment, as in some spin-off sites I have tried, there is an excess of tolerance for content-less posts by people who really don’t want answers but only to be noticed. On the ‘Net in general, you can expect to be greeted by baboon cries of “Newb! Read the FAQ! SQ! STFU!” when you post blatant self-promotion full of typos, or yes-or-true questions. On LinkedIn, everybody goes to the other extreme by pretending that you’re a legitimate poster, which allows the truly cretinous to thrive there.
LinkedIn’s ads are intrusive and hoaky. Some don’t even look very professional. They’re large, often animated, and distracting. Most of the time they’re ill placed for the content that surround them. Compare that once again to Facebook, that has lots of ads but at least keeps them smaller and off to the side. (Though in both cases, thank God and the Mozilla-based code monkeys for Adblock!)
The crowd who uses LinkedIn is not diverse enough. Frankly, it’s full of marketing and recruiting folks. While I understand how incredibly useful LinkedIn is for them, they’re just not very interesting to talk to. They don’t care whether they’re talking widgets, kumquats, or decibels. Everything is a commodity and all is equal.
I long for the day where we have more people there who discuss the substance of things or work, rather than about managing or marketing things and work. I try to push LinkedIn among engineer and scientist colleagues, but the very fact that they have few people to talk to over there makes it a hard sell.
The LIONs are hungry. There’s the “LinkedIn open networker” factor. To be blunt, seeing that someone has 500, 1000 or 1500 contacts on LinkedIn does not impress me; it simply suggests that this person’s contacts are meant to be consumed, not cultivated. How could “Joseph Bleau III esq. (LION) me@myspammyaccount.com” really follow 1500 contacts? They’re just names on Joe Bleau’s list. They’re tick marks.
Getting a bunch of contact requests from these people mostly creeps me out, and I turn down the majority unless there is in fact some connection. For example, I have accepted a few LION contacts who share my professional associations or groups, even if I don’t know them personally.
On my wish list
Tagging and ranking. I really wish LinkedIn let me have different levels of contacts: the true contacts, the more distant or second-tier contacts, the open networkers, etc. For now, I use JibberJobber to track this, but it would be nice to be able to filter feeds from contacts on LinkedIn. Similarly, I would like to be able to assign tags that would show when I mouse over a name. This is another thing I handle through JibberJobber.
Fortunately, LinkedIn just started allowing users to add notes to their contacts, but it’s not quite refined yet. The notes are more like post-its, but I’m hoping the features will continue to expand.
Real penetration among technical professionals (other than IT). I’d like to be able to talk shop with engineers, biologists, urban planners, architects, geologists, hydrologists, etc.
Custom views and dashboard. I would love to be able to rearrange the elements on my pages the way you now can with the WordPress dashboard or Google widgets.
So I mentioned a lot of features on which Facebook kicks LinkedIn’s ass all over the court. Why don’t I just stick to Facebook, then? Because although Facebook can be used for professional purposes, it’s really built for play. It has all these games and cutesie apps that are hard to resist; and the next thing you know, you’re mixing business and personal life.
Now, I don’t think you can hide your personal life, and in fact I think that would be unhealthy. But that doesn’t mean I want to mix wall-to-wall quips exchanged among friends with business presentations. That would be like showing up at the office in my pyjamas; no one minds if I wear them at home, but no one wants to see them at a staff meeting. Facebook is optimized for play while LinkedIn is solely dedicated to business, and that’s the way I want it to stay.
Despite my gripes and my unfulfilled online networker aspirations, LinkedIn is a really useful tool and I think the recent releases of applications and new features is a step in the right direction. I recommend it without hesitation to anyone who has a ‘Net presence. Just bear with the rough corners and make a niche for yourself.
Links of interest:
Share this article on LinkedIn
[…] has a really, really good post about LinkedIn and social networking… its a well-thought out post sharing things she “loves,” things she […]
Hi,
Kudos on your post. I found your analysis clear and accurate. I have some minor disagreements (I don’t use it for every contact I meet, for example), but I hope the folks at LinkedIn look at this post and give it some serious consideration.
Best wishes,
Fernando
Oh, you’re right, I don’t use it for every contact. But for certain categories of contacts, it’s really nice to be able to keep up through LinkedIn.
Hi! Sophie
Well thought out post.Especially agree with ” linkedin provides a good follow-up to the first contact”. Kind of keeps the link with one time contact alive.
reg
Prakash
[…] December, 2008 by Sophie Lagacé I recently wrote about the good and bad aspects of the LinkedIn professional networking site. Since then, I’ve […]
Great post –
Thank you.
– Steven Burda
http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda
http://www.cio.com/article/print/470122
Thank you for your insightful thoughts on Linkedin. I’m pretty new to the whole social networking and I’ve tried to do it all at once. Bad idea. I’m concentrating on getting linkedin under my belt before I tackle the rest.
Mollie Beatty
http://www.linkedin.com/in/molliebeatty
[…] January, 2009 by Sophie Lagacé I’ve talked about online presence and social networking tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and their applications, used in a professional context. Another […]
[…] I want to point to some of my previous posts on my best tools during my recent job search, and on LinkedIn and its […]
[…] LinkedIn and online networking […]
[…] LinkedIn and online networking — merits and flaws on LinkedIn […]