Of LinkedIn and LIONs
Posted by Sappho on October 3rd, 2012 filed in Daily Life
I got my last scheduled chemotherapy treatment on Friday, and see my oncologist today and get examined and scanned. Sometime soon I should know whether I am to get more. In the meantime, so you’ll know I’m still alive, a word about a smaller dilemma.
On LinkedIn, there is a thing called a “LION,” or “Linked In Open Networker.” The idea is that you decide in advance to accept connections from absolutely anybody who asks.
I have been following a LION policy informally, without actually announcing myself as such. Why take all connections? Well, it didn’t seem likely I’d be overwhelmed with them (and in fact I haven’t gotten that many requests from people I don’t know), and I don’t see a huge downside to exchanging career information with a larger network of people. Why not announce it? Because I don’t want to absolutely commit myself to accepting connections from everyone. There are a few people from whom I’d reject connections: the guy who stalked one friend from college days, the abusive husband of another friend from college days, basically anyone who has stalked or assaulted anyone I know. One such person did in fact turn up on LinkedIn’s list of suggested connections (obviously, I passed on that one).
I’m wondering now, though, whether I should reconsider accepting connections from strangers. Two new connections, strangers to me, tried to sell me the same office chair as soon as I’d accepted them. I’m happy to get news about job openings from anyone, even though I’m not looking at this point; job opening news can be passed on to other people in my network who can use it. Likewise with messages asking for technical articles that I really don’t, right now, have time or energy to write; they let me know what’s going on, and may be useful news to pass on to friends. But messages asking me to buy more stuff are just so much dead weight. If I get more of these, I may need to switch from LION mode to accepting connections only from people I actually know. Or at least people who, if I don’t know them, have actually interacted with me in some LinkedIn group.
What LinkedIn connection policy has worked best for you?