FROM AN EMAIL EXCHANGE ABOUT “LIVELINESS”

Thanks for your insight. I’m not so sure what LinkedIn is, or isn’t.

In it’s public professions, it tries to be a “silver bullet”. Being wise old far … individuals we KNOW that the Lone Ranger took Silver and the bullets with him. I went into LinkedIn many moons ago with really no expectations. I didn’t discontinue any of my other activities, projects, processes, or methods — just squoze in LinkedIn.

Over the years, in my blog, I have wrestled with it. It more of a Yellow Pages than the Phone Book — or books. It doesn’t update my address book like Plaxo used to do very well. It doesn’t have lots of kids on it like MySpace or Facebook. It’s not Lucht style face 2 face networking. It’s not “job search” a la Monster, or “What Color Is Your Parachute”.

So, while it may be a “tool”, like the aboriginal contemplating the Coke bottle that fell from a plane, I’m left wondering what it is. :-)

Part, of figuring what it is or is not, is assessing it usability as a “networking tool”. (Some call it “not working”! Which I thought was clever. Of the measurements, that I have heard one claimed a 90% response rate and two said it was too much trouble to measure.)

Lord Kelvin said something like “If you can’t measure it, you don’t understand it”.

I also admit that on the rare occasions when I sing I am “off key” so why should this be different?

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