The Value of Networks
Saturday, July 19th, 2008...12:02 pm
A few months ago I gave up on Facebook. My page is still there but I don’t update it any more since the only 4 “friends” I have probably already know what’s going on in my life. To be useful you would need a bigger network of friends but that seems to cheapen the notion of a friend and starts to get kinda creepy.
Anyway, John mentioned LinkedIn which I thought was still invitation-only. Anyway, I gave it a go. The idea seems a lot more reasonable than Facebook: connect to colleagues and old friends so that you can use these contacts when looking for a job, starting a business etc. I’ve already found an old friend from uni there but I’m terrible at maintaining these networks. My current tally of old friends I keep in contact with (~ once a year or so):
- School: 1
- Uni: 0
- Bluewatch: 1
- Broadcom: 2 (and I married one of them!)
- MLE: 0
- Uni of Southampton: 0
However, I can see that maintaining a LinkedIn network, which you only leverage occasionally, can be very valuable (see Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties) so this is something I’ll try to do more of in the future. LinkedIn seems like the sort of site you’d use a few times a year (instead of a few times a week/day for Facebook) which meshes better with the types of relationships you’re trying to cultivate.
5 Comments
July 19th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
That increases my linkedin network by 1.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I’m so stalking you now!
July 28th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
The huge upside to linkedin is that it doesn’t bother you. Facebook nags and nags, linkedin is just there for when you want to use it.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I may have over reacted a bit with linked in. I’m thinking of giving it a go. Whats the worst that could happen…..
July 31st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Well, I’ve got quite a few old connections now and people are inviting *me* to join their network (LinkedIn does a smart thing by telling you if now people join from an old employer of yours — very smart).
Seems like there’s just a much lower barrier to entry with LinkedIn: “Did you work with this person at XXX?” Yep! Click! Whereas Facebook is asking: “Are you friends with this person? Do you want to share you interests/updates/books/photos/music/etc with them?” That’s a much tougher proposition to sell.
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