Sully's Stuff

Shmula on LinkedIn

Peter Abilla, ops expert and publisher of Shmula, posts on the number of strangers in his LinkedIn network today. I was going to post this as a comment, but I couldn't pass his math test (on his blog, somehow adding 4 and 2 does not make 6:

Peter -- you and I met through a LinkedIn request, and I agree, it's easy to have a cluttered network full of people that you don't know.

Just about everyone has received requests from people that query by company or occupation and take an educated guess on your e-mail to build a massive bank of contacts. Of course, this makes your search broader and increases the chances you'll find what you're looking for.

The downside is when you have to pass on a request from someone that you don't know to contact someone that you know very well without really being able to validate the value of making that introduction for your friend. I won't pass on these types of requests unless I "meet" the person in a conversation first. I come down on the side of "more is better" but it means that I use LinkedIn more as a database of loose connections than a tool to truly manage my personal network.

posted by Sully @ 8/29/2006