EY's Rants and Raves

A co-worker invited me to be "LinkedIn" with him. So I did. He has over 500 people in his network. I guess this is the professional version of having friends on MySpace. I actually went out to LinkedIn to see what I'm supposed to do now. I can add people to my network either from Big Faceless Corp (BFC) or from the college I attended.

Here's the thing....I'm not the most social person in the world (I'm an only child, so go figure). If I *cared* about contacting someone from BFC to say "hi, remember me, I know you", I'd just do it. I don't see a need to make a sandbox for us to play in. Same with school alumni. If I wanted to maintain a relationship with you after we graduated, I probably did so. And if I didn't....well, no offense, but I'm probably "just not that into you".

I guess I could invite some of these folk to be in "my network", but I just don't see the point. If I know you, I know you. If I want to be friends with you, I probably am already.

Networking has always seemed to have a tinge of "I'm only making contact with you so that I can eventually get something for ME out of it". I suppose, at the most essential, all friendships are like that. But to consciously go out and acquire people hoping it will "pay off" later is just too mercenary to me. One time, someone explained networking in a way that didn't seem quite this selfish, but I've lost that definition, so I'm stuck with mine.

So if any of my Dear Readers are big networkers and can shed some light on how it's not totally mercenary, I'm all ears.