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May 27, 2005
The Dark Side of the Network
The Dark Side of the Network - posted on Ecademy
The network is strong in this one. I feel its power all around me.
I'm a big fan of LinkedIn. I generally take LinkedIn's advice and only connect with people I know. I'm not the most conservative LinkedIn user, but I am not nearly as promiscuous with my connections as many people are.
Because I've been participating on mailing lists for discussing how to use LinkedIn for networking, I get a lot of invitations from the more promiscuous folks. It's usually easy to decline them with my usual form letter. Not only does it clearly say in my LinkedIn profile that I won't connect with strangers, but I discuss in detail on these mailing lists why I want to get to know someone before I connect with them. So, blammo, they're declined.
But I've been talking with some of these guys lately who are sending the invitations. I mean, I'm not opposed to meeting new people. Talking to them about their networking strategies helps me better understand networking in general. A few of them give pitiful pleas for me to accept their invitation. But many make seductive arguments for going for the big numbers of connections, for taking a positive and accepting approach with people. Some of their reasoning make sense. These are real people now, not just boilerplate invitations that I can toss aside without a thought. Oh no! I'm being drawn toward the dark side of the force, I mean, network!
I'm holding my ground. Reading Scott Allen's writings helps to bring me back on the straight and narrow. But I feel like I'm losing my grip on the quality side of the quality vs. quantity debate.
Don't let me go over to the dark side! I don't want to have pages full of connections and not know who any of them are. Someone save me!
Danny R. Faught
Tejas Software Consulting
http://tejasconsulting.com/
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The reality is that "quantity and quality" just aren't related concepts --
- Quality is a property of the relationship ...
- Quantity is a property of LinkedIn search engine performance
It's just muddled thinking to related them (at least when referring to LinkedIn)
But then, I, a former Jedi turned "Darth Vader of LinkedIn", believe that "The Darkside" is pure propaganda to preserve the ancient, and largely irrelevant, religious code among a bunch of has-been sheep-like believers
You are not stepping towards Darkness -- you are steping towards Light
Darkness is just a metaphor for fear ... don't be afraid --
<<Step towards the "True Light">>
- The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster
- SiliconBeat: LinkedIn bows to reality -- shifts to promiscuous-celibate strategy
Posted by cmayaud at 09:00 AM | Permalink| Comments (3)
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Hi, Christian. I like Scott Allen's assertion that there isn't a "one size fits all" networking approach. What led me to writing the silly Star Wars analogy wasn't so much that I think your approach is wrong for you, but that many people are trying to convince me that it's right for me.
What I find interesting is that some people write so much about getting big numbers on LinkedIn without talking about the actual networking that they do. I do a great deal of networking, and I use LinkedIn to reflect the relationships I already have. I get a lot of other interesting benefits from LinkedIn without trying to connect directly will everyone who's there.
So my approach, which includes LinkedIn and several other things, works for me. And I agree that quality and quantity aren't entirely opposing forces.
-Danny
Posted by: Danny Faught at May 27, 2005 09:25 PM
Quality is a property of the relationship ...
Christian - a very clear (and in my view correct) differentiation between quality and quantity. The reason I keep on connecting to people (not at the incredibly high speed of some of my peers) is that until a relationship exists I caannot know its quality. Somewhere out there are people with whom I will one day have a brilliant and productive business relationship and I haven't even met them yet!
Having read Scott's writings on this, I feel that he is moving into a similar pov. You may have to cover a lot of ground at the shallow level of connecting through one or more of the networks - LinkedIn is very good for this. In Scott's view, this level is what he needs to promote newsletters, blogs and publications. Going to a deeper level, perhaps to collaborate in a project or venture or simply to promote each other to our networks, will only happen with a proportion of those shallow connections (weak ties) and I choose to do that mostly on Ecademy because of the tools and functionality that is there. I can back that with f2f, Skype, Avecomm etc to get the interpersonal connections working.
Thanks for the clarity of the anlysis.
Andy
Posted by: Andy Coote at June 20, 2005 04:43 AM
I recieved this "manaual trackback" today -- Thanks -- cgm
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http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/404
Sorry. I'm still new to this blogging thing, and haven't made trackback work.
Best regards,
CAM
Posted by: Christian Mayaud at June 21, 2005 11:11 AM
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