I love LinkedIn. I think it’s super-cool technology…the ability for a user to meet people they want to engage through mutually trusted connections is invaluable. I emphasize “mutually trusted” because I think that was really the intent of the product.
You create your network with people you have a business relationship with - peers, customers, affiliates networking contacts. Those people in turn do the same. Through this thoughtful process, you build rings of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree contacts.
Should you need to reach out to someone for services, or to offer yours, the tool allows you to search by title, company or name, finding results from literally hundreds of thousands of people, then provides you the lineage of how the two of you are connected. You can then submit a request for an introduction through that lineage. Since everyone in that lineage knows and trusts each other, your request makes its way to its intended recipient, usually with a rousing endorsement from your peers. Cool!
That’s not the way the site’s working anymore. In fact, the idea of “mutually trusted” connections is a thing of the past. Like the famed Tila Tequilla of MySpace, LinkedIn now has a growing sub-category of LinkedIn participants called LIONS…or LinkedIn Open Networkers.
With a mission statement of supporting “the freedom to shape the direction and growth of the LinkedIn component of their members’ personal network” LIONSs are identified as people who won’t say ‘no’ to just about anybody wishing to link to them. They’re more concerned with quantity, rather than quality. One site has a cute little logic argument model drawn out that looks like this:
- YOUR Network = YOUR Network
- YOUR Network >> Your LinkedIn Connections
- The Quality of YOUR Relationships = The Quality of YOUR Network
- No One Knows The Value of a Potential Relationship A Priori
- Open Networks = Growing High-Quality Networks
- Closed Networks = Stagnating Low-Quality Networks
I’m agreement with some of it.
- What’s mine is mine, including my network.
- My true network IS greater than my LinkedIn connections.
- The quality of my relationships may or may not have much to do with the quality of my network. I may have a group of wonderful people in a BNI chapter, or in a chamber of commerce intermingled with a bunch of dillweeds. No one can measure the two relationships, and network independently, and then compare the two for a correlation.
- I love statement #4…I had to look up “a priori” to understand it’s meaning…a lawyer must have suggested that, in order to justify his/her fees defending a LION getting sued by LinkedIn. (BTW it means “based on a deduction, or hypothesis.” In statistics, it means “a knowledge of the actual population.” I’m guess the LIONs mean the former, not the latter.)
- The last two are kind of funny as well…Open-good…closed-bad. That almost flies in the face of my buddy #4. There’s just no way to tell.
Where I’m a little confused about that model is that it’s missing a seventh statement that I think they should include…
- Entities that Build Technology have No Right in Telling Users How to Use it.
See, that’s kind of the rub with LIONs…LinkedIn would prefer they not exist. The company realized that, if many people link to every and anyone, the idea of reaching out through existing relationships diminish. For example, if you have 100 contacts, and they each have 100 unique contacts, and THEY each have 100 unique contacts, you would in theory have a network of 1,000,000 people to access, and access you. This is somewhat unlikely, however…as your network will likely never have 100, that know 100 that know 100 unique people. Most ‘pure’ networks will probably have less contacts, and many ‘mutual’ contacts that cross multiple networks.
Now, if you have a couple LIONs in your network with open contacts, that population can become exponentially larger. With a couple LIONs in my network today, I have some +3 million contacts, and that number grows daily. For the most part, I’m pretty cool with that…as more contacts should yield more access, right?
Maybe not.
Something I think about. If these “contact hoarders” aren’t being discretionary as to who they allow in their networks, how can I be certain that everyone I’m connected to is an ethical, fair-minded business professional? Also, since I can’t “see” who views my requests to connect (”as they’re passed sometime through a 2nd degree, and 3rd degree contact), how can I be assured a person will 500, 1000, 10,000 connections will actually pass my request on to the intended recipient? How could someone realistically manage that many potential requests in a timely manner?
While I’m not suggesting that anyone actually does this, I think that the only way to use LinkedIn in a manner that ensures a) quality of connection, and b) the highest degree of delivery of connect messages, is to avoid the LION member all together.
Feedback appreciated, please!