LinkedOut!

My nephew sends me an invite to join his LinkedIn network. My nephew! He who knows every phone number and email I own!!

Just busting his chops, but seriously I get so many invites from LinkedIn and when I do accept them (every few weeks I feel guilty and sign in), 98% of them have NOTHING to tell me. It's just another notch on their belt. I have 4 contacts who have 500+ connections each!

I try to emulate Peggy Taylor - I try hard to respond to every email and phone and Skype and TypePad message I get. If you need to reach me, my contact info is in the profile. Open door.

I know lots of people love LinkedIn, but if you need to reach me, please just reach out to me directly ...cheers

Update: I just got a LinkedIn invite from good friend Chris Selland - it says "You had BETTER accept this!"

Comments

[Chris Selland]

you Luddite!

All kidding aside I use it all the time. It's a great tool for bus dev guys like me.

I'm about to make that 4 a 5...

[Ravi Ramakrishnan]

Try Doostang. A linkedin network by invitation only. The success stories on the site are very impressive and I had heard great things about them for VC kinda jobs.

Sorry...I dont have an account to invite anyone ;)

[Phil Fersht]

LinkedIn Rocks! If you get the Outlook toolbar you can see immediately who's using it and who isn't just by running your mouse over the email. A few tips:

a) Avoid inviting people who work for a competitor. If they're smart they'll go through your contacts in 5 mins;

b) NEVER let a headhunter in. They'll irritate the hell out of you trying to connect to anyone senior you know;

c) Don't accept invitations from people who are either idiots, or very junior. Your contact collection is a prize tool (and you want it to look good when you're enticing a prized new acquaintance) and you don't want any rotten apples in there as it's damn hard to remove contacts;

d) If someone invites you, NEVER decline the invitation, just ignore it. If you decline, they will see it on their records. It's worse than "blocking" someone from your IM and getting caught out. You will have an enemy for life;

e) Avoid technology retards who never use any cool tech tools. They will call you up and make a huge deal about how to use the damn thing - you'll be there doing help-desk for hours. Only focus on current LinkedIn users unless it's someone you need to show off your network to....;

f) Always decline the LinkedIn spammer...you know the types who just go after everyone in the world;

g) Don't make your network inaccessible to everyone. This just pisses everyone else off and defeats the purpose of the whole thing. It's a bit like security-enabling your wireless LAN (I'll save that debate for another time);

g) Avoid sales/BD people who have limited contacts or are not on LinkedIn at all. Any sales person worth his or her salt uses LinkedIn. If they don't, they suck. If you're interviewing a salesperson who isn't on it, don't hire them;

h) Think twice when being invited from the "company LinkedInner". Those are the folks who only invite people from their own firm 'cause they don't know anyone in their industry.....;

i) Endorse people - it's fun and they'll love you for it.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Phil, I do believe you have enough to get an advance for book - LinkedIn for Dummies

PS - I resemble point e -)

[Jan]

I admire your capability to answer every email...

I lost control over my inbox quite a while ago even with heavy use of Tumbleweed; so having a friend of mine referring a contact to me on LinkedIn is very helpful.

Yes, I like the open door policy but I am also sure that while going through my inbox with SHIFT+PAGE DOWN my nervous delete finger accidently deleted a few interesting contact attempts

check out my post on

http://janmeise.blogspot.com/2006/12/linkedin-versus-xingopenbc.html

[Phil Fersht]

Linked-In just added this feature where you can remove contacts without their being notified. Means you can accept invitations and subtely delete them and it doesn't appear like you deliberately avoided their eagerness to have you on their list. Not to mention the fact you can now clean up the detritus which is tarnishing your pristine set of contacts....

p.s. - do avoid the headhunters - they will drill into anyone who's anyone on there.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Jan, Phil - thanks...I guess I naively am just calling for some etiquette...I maintain a fairly open door policy - so reach out to me by phone, email, even LinkedIn if you have something specfic to say or ask....too many LinkedIn invites seem to just be to add someone to your network.

BTW - I tried LinkedIn twice in last month. I was trying to get some addresses for Christmas cards - and of course, there are no physical addresses there. Also outside of tech, hardly anyone else from other industries seems to be part of the network. The second time I tried to identify sales people at particular vendors for a RFP for a client and the data was suprisingly dated. Not sure people are keeping their profiles updated?