Reinke Faces Life

FROM A LINKEDIN CONTACT ABOUT “LIVELINESS”

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I decided to perform a small test of my own today… by simply sending out recommendation requests to those people I have actually worked with (as opposed to all the recruiters that are in my network). I’ll et you know the final results… but I’m already getting replies from people who have taken over colleagues email addresses at companies asking me who I am!!! Not a real good sign.

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Amazing what you find out when you look!

Here’s another reason why you should never ever use your current employer’s email in LinkedIn.

I rant about this all the time. Not your current employers! Not your ISP! Not gmail, yahoo, or whatever! It has to be from your own domain name.

Like “reinke.cc”!

No excuses. No reason not to. You’re supposed to be a pro, professional, it can be done for well under $100 bucks a year. It’s probably in the 60$/year range. That’s a little more than a dollar a week.

There’s no excuse for it.

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FROM AN MLPF EMAIL

>Re: Hilary For President
>Posted by: “Verdegem, Luc”
>Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:58 pm (PST)
>Sorry for this question,
>I was just wondering why there are not more “smart” politicians that use

Interesting.

“Ron Paul” is also on LinkedIn. I’m one of “his” loons. But, I would know more think of doing the old Star Trek Vulcan Mind Meld with that pseudo person

(I have to update my taxonomy of “Trolls you find on LinkedIn” with a new one “political alter egos”! — POLITICIANS. Sort of the opposite of ABILLGATES that high value target. This is imho a low value target.)

LINKEDIN: Updated taxonomy of LinkedIn “identities”
https://reinkefaceslife.com/2007/11/29/linkedin-updated-taxonomy-of-linkedin-identities
http://tinyurl.com/25b5mw

Those have to be a violation of the LinkedIn TOS, contrary to the spirit of LinkedIn, and injecting your politics into an inappropriate venue. IMHO.

I can’t see any upside to doing this. What’s next? Linking to your favorite cartoon character.

(Shaking my virtual, not virtuous, head in amazement.)

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Please note: You are now required to enter an email address to send invitations from this page because several recipients of your invitations indicated they don’t know you. This safeguard is in place to prevent users from receiving unwanted invitations from people they don’t know. Customer Service can remove the restriction at anytime once you indicate that you understand this policy.

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I don’t know what they are talking about. I don’t invite ever since Linkedin instituted their dumb “5 I don’t knows and your suspended”. I only accept invites.

The funnier think is that I am not, nor have I ever been, what they hate … an “open” networker.

?

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FROM AN EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH A LINKEDIN CONTACT

>and LinkedIn stays on my personal e-mail which is second priority. I’m cleaning e-mail today .

Well, just as long as you remember, that one’s first duty, the 2008 Prime Directive, is to find your “next” job! Too many times, as you’ve probably heard me blog, I hear my turkeys tell me that “they were too busy with work to … …”. With unfortunate results. Both in family life and earning power.

>I agree with your blog comments. I think one interesting question is how “linked” are we through affiliations.

I think that “affiliations” can lead to “linking”.

> I would not hesitate to recommend you or introduce you, based upon my view of your work on XXXXXXXXXX and your writings I’ve seen.

Thanks for the kind words. If one can’t be “good”, be “persistent”? :-)

>I wouldn’t offer the same to someone just because they XXXXXXXXXXX.

No, but I bet you might be inclined to take a Lucht-style networking meeting with them. See that is the theory of the “granfalloon” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon where one can parlay an “imaginary connection” into a chance to create a weak link. Which then, over time, you can build to a strong one. I used that extensively first in my career, and later in selling.

>interesting that in at least four – I was linked to these people through you – two or three separations.

Well, in LinkedIn you need to connect to a few “paul revere” types or some of the “mega connectors” to be “findable”

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EMAIL ABOUT USING LINKEDIN’S IDKs

>Re: “Running out of invitations…”
>Posted by: “Mario P. Lopez”
>Thu Dec 6, 2007 7:41 pm (PST)
>Should we give the IDK “prize” to canned invitations, forget about it
>(and maybe avoid potential problems) and mind our own networking business?

While I am always up for a good “tar’n’feathering”, I’d suggest that “canned invites” should just be automatically ignores. I’d suggest that IDKing them might “freeze” a newbie who might not know any better. Since it will take a lot of work to determine exactly what is on the other end of the invite, and even more work if it is a newbie, I vote to just archive it.

I do, however, support identifying the spammers who should know better (i.e., the Blue Chip) and collectively determining to punish them for their annoying behavior.

When everyone was citing the Blue Chip spam, I thought that would be a good use of IDK.

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Found some one who dropped me. And, I’ve asked why!

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FROM AN EMAIL EXCHANGE ABOUT “LIVELINESS”

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From: GB
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 8:50 AM
To: John Reinke
Subject: Re: Has anyone tested the “liveliness” of their LinkedIn “network”?

Okay, I read and re-read this.

I am not sure what you are exactly trying to say.

I recognize LinkedIn as a social networking tool. Outside of that, the voluntary and or involuntary act of CHAT or IM exist only where there are willing participants.

I would chat if there was something to chat about.

Perhaps, if you develop a forum that you wish to chat about or subjects that you would like feedback, you might draw the sustainable interest in the participants.

Outside of that, not everyone had a 6 sigma mentality and or even the slightest idea what that entails.

I, myself, am confused at times about the ‘how’s’, the ‘who’s’ and the ‘what’s’.

But, after all, it is only social networking. Not like it is dating or any other real and tangible way to communicate…right?

How you doin’
GB

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>Okay, I read and re-read this.

Sorry, I wasn’t clearer.

>I am not sure what you are exactly trying to say.

LinkedIn is a “strange duck”. It’s not “networking”. It’s probably more than a “yellow pages for recruiters”. Folks are fooled into an “activity trap”
and think they are “doing networking”.

>i recognize LinkedIn as a social networking tool.

Tool? Hmmm, not sure of that.

>you might draw the sustainable interest in the participants.

I’m not trying to “draw the sustain able interest”. I’m trying to figure out what is the proper place for LinkedIn within my own thinking.

>not everyone had a 6 sigma mentality

OK, if you’re not into 6sig. Then, let me phrase the same question in “plain English”. If LinkedIn is a tool, then what value has it provided me that justifies the attention, work, money, or time that I put into it?

>But, after all, it is only social networking.

SO, it should be considered like MySpace, Facebook, or Friendster? I bet that’s a minority opinion.

> Not like it is dating or any other real and tangible way to communicate…right?

Maybe?

>How you doin’

Get ready for the next layoff, jobsearch, and my next to last job. :-) Fatalistic. But, best not to be surprised.

Thanks for the thoughts

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Addendum:

Regardless of how solid one thinks one is in the job they are doing somewhere, it’s wise to be “aware”. I’ve pontificated often on the need of “salarymen”, as the Japanese wisely call those of us who are working for a paycheck, that you are only sure of the last paycheck that cleared the bank! It’s nice to believe in mutual loyalty between employer and employee, but, like most myths, hitting that “iceberg of reality” can put a big hole in YOUR boat. Bear in mind, it may not even be the employer’s “fault”. But even if it is, you must be prepared for when “the show closes”.

You always have to see the NEXT layoff in your future. It maybe next week, next month, next quarter, next year, next decade … … but be assured there WILL BE one! Sooner or later. Like a snowstorm, flood, or tornado, there’s going to be one. Salarymen must be prepared for it!

Give 100% to your employer for that is what you bargained for. Then, give 100% to finding your next gig. Never ever get caught by surprise.

In my patented copyrighted super-secret Coke-like formula for “how many months will I be burning not earning”, I have a factor for your to rate your employer. Factor is ONE for gooferment workers. (Although that may change if your work for the IRS and Ron Paul gets elected. But you get the idea.) Factor is FIVE if you work on WALLSTREET. How likely are you to get NUKED? The point is there is always some probability that you’ll get tossed out on your year. Just yesterday, I heard a senior exec at my employer tell a room full of folk “no job is safe”. So, I’d be a fool not to heeded my own advice.

:-)

And I may be a the big fat old turkey hisself and a FOWG to boot, but Mama Reinke didn’t raise no fool. (Where do you think my obsession with working comes from? Her Scarlet O’Hara-like dream of never being hungry gain!)

So, it’s get busy NETWORKING to prevent NOTWORKING!

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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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