From the title, you might have visited this blog to learn more about sub-tier supplier management. Not today. For April Fools’ Day, I’m deviating from the serious and sometimes deadly boring business of supply chain and lean to talk about the trend of business networking on Linked In. Linked In has mushroomed since I first joined several years ago. Today I’m profiling, or rather poking fun of, some of the types of people you may run into on Linked In.
Blowhards– post answers to every question, link to you so that they can send you newsletters and spam. It’s all about them – all hot air, all the time. Is this bus dev 2.0? Once you connect to a blow hard, it’s like catching the flu. Stay connected just to marvel at their chutzpah and at how much time they are willing to waste to spread their self-centered germs. Get a life.
Networking Enthusiasts – are trying to win the prize for having the most links. They see Linked In as a business popularity contest and a competitive sport. They link to hundreds and hundreds of people. Do they actually know all of these folks? Wow. They must have some social life. If you link to these people, your network will instantly grow into the millions. It would be interesting to check to see how many of their connections are actually still living.
Groupies– these folks like to join Linked In groups and collect the badges of the different groups that they join. They are the boy scouts and girl scouts of the Internet. The groups they join may never be active or add any particular value, but those merit badges sure look cool. Watch out for blowhards in these groups, who may join them to pontificate about how great they are.
The Weakest Link – someone told them about Linked In and invited them to join, but they never got further than a couple of connections of the people who invite them. And they’ve forgotten their password by now, anyway.
Area 51– are the people who ask you to link, but then keep their network top secret and don’t allow you to see it. It’s OK for them to see your network, but not theirs. And I’m talking about people you actually know, not strangers. Do they think you’re going to harrass their connections or run away with their clients? Sheesh.
Trophy Linkers– are very selective about whom they link with. Only CEOs and VPs please. OK, and maybe a few famous sports figures, too. Don’t want their network to be just “ordinaire”.
Intergalactic Travellers – These are people come in from outer space like aliens and find you, but you can’t figure out how they know you. It’s because they actually don’t know you. These people are not necessarily the compulsive collectors with zillions of people in their network. They just decide that you’re someone they’d like in their network, so they write to you on the pretext that either you knew them when you were a grunt 3 or 4 jobs ago or that you currently work for the same company as they do (huh?). Haven’t figured these folks out yet.
Linking Maniacs – These are people who think that joining one networking site or even two is not enough. So they invite you to join lots of other networks that they are in. I’m not sure what you do with networks on top of your networks. Does anyone besides recruiters actually have time to participate in them all and get something out of all of these networks? I get tired just thinking about them.
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