Have you ever played "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"? The game was born in the early 1990's and is based on the premise that the world is so small a place that we can connect with Kevin Bacon within six degrees. It's this phenomenon that brings us now today to the internet. We are connecting daily with new people through Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, Facebook, SocialMedian and one that I am going to focus on called LinkedIn.
What is Social Networking? Social Networking sites are for chatting, exchanging ideas and making online friends. On the Social Networks that you belong to you can be approached someone sending you a note telling you that they want to connect and you can do the same with people you find interesting. You can check their profile and accept or deny. It's very easy and there is no quid pro quo that you have to accept an invitation. Sometimes the connections lead to offline friendships or work. But there is not an emphasis on either.
LinkedIn is all about business networking, they have more than 25 million professionals over 150 countries . Here's how it works: You post your work resume (it's a free service), for reasons such as connecting with others in the same field, to get a job or to let people know what you are doing. After you have posted your resume, you then want to add contacts. LinkedIn has an easy system where you let them access your address book to alert your friends that you are now posting on LinkedIn. Your contacts that are also on LinkedIn can accept your invitation to connect and then will be added to your Contact List. Through them you can see who their contacts are, which widens your network with potential access to their contacts.
Now here's the fun part. What if you wanted to propose a business plan or inquire about a job opening to a company, but you have no contacts there? LinkedIn lets you know how you can approach the company by showing you your connection to them by degrees. For instance, say I wanted to contact Google, I would type in "Google" in the search field, I would then be presented pages of people from Google and how many degrees I am away from them. I can see that I can choose from 3 degrees to 2 degrees away. I then choose the contact that is 2 degrees away and ask for an introduction. Whether my contact wishes to do that, it is up to them.
Social Networking sites have been viewed as sites that are more frivolous than useful, on the other hand with the economy heading the way it is, networking sites such as LinkedIn will be of importance to those seeking work ( as of September 2008 the unemployment rate is 7.7% for California). The reach of work networking sites is far beyond what you could do by mailing out resumes; plus you can update and edit instantly.
We live in a city of over nine million people, and in the physical world, the real world, our connections are made face to face; unless we are famous our circle is small and consists of people we trust. In our online world we have the capability to expand our network a hundredfold and beyond. However, what is the quality of that online network? Do we put as much trust in it as our offline relationships? There is no person to person gut instinct at play there, we go by what we see online; we can only interact via text and images.
In this new age of connectivity you must decide on how many degrees you want to be away from Kevin Bacon, because it's all about who you know.
Coming up next we will be talking to Rachel Olivier about her search for a job in Los Angeles, and what online job sites worked and didn't work for her.
Image: Ophelia Chong
LinkedIn is all about business networking, they have more than 25 million professionals over 150 countries . Here's how it works: You post your work resume (it's a free service), for reasons such as connecting with others in the same field, to get a job or to let people know what you are doing. After you have posted your resume, you then want to add contacts. LinkedIn has an easy system where you let them access your address book to alert your friends that you are now posting on LinkedIn. Your contacts that are also on LinkedIn can accept your invitation to connect and then will be added to your Contact List. Through them you can see who their contacts are, which widens your network with potential access to their contacts.
Now here's the fun part. What if you wanted to propose a business plan or inquire about a job opening to a company, but you have no contacts there? LinkedIn lets you know how you can approach the company by showing you your connection to them by degrees. For instance, say I wanted to contact Google, I would type in "Google" in the search field, I would then be presented pages of people from Google and how many degrees I am away from them. I can see that I can choose from 3 degrees to 2 degrees away. I then choose the contact that is 2 degrees away and ask for an introduction. Whether my contact wishes to do that, it is up to them.
Social Networking sites have been viewed as sites that are more frivolous than useful, on the other hand with the economy heading the way it is, networking sites such as LinkedIn will be of importance to those seeking work ( as of September 2008 the unemployment rate is 7.7% for California). The reach of work networking sites is far beyond what you could do by mailing out resumes; plus you can update and edit instantly.
We live in a city of over nine million people, and in the physical world, the real world, our connections are made face to face; unless we are famous our circle is small and consists of people we trust. In our online world we have the capability to expand our network a hundredfold and beyond. However, what is the quality of that online network? Do we put as much trust in it as our offline relationships? There is no person to person gut instinct at play there, we go by what we see online; we can only interact via text and images.
In this new age of connectivity you must decide on how many degrees you want to be away from Kevin Bacon, because it's all about who you know.
Coming up next we will be talking to Rachel Olivier about her search for a job in Los Angeles, and what online job sites worked and didn't work for her.
Image: Ophelia Chong
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I remember when the unemployment in Whatcom County was up over 7% and it was tough. That was when I was in high school and not yet concerned too much, but I remember it being tight for us back then.
I love LinkedIn and I think it's one of those Social Networking sites that shows all the positive ways the internet can be used. I've heard that MeetUps is a good tool as well, though I haven't use that one, yet.
"The world is at your fingertips" is more true now than ever.
;O)
LinkedIn is useful for finding for building new professional contacts; for those of us of... umm, a certain age... Web 2.0 tools also serve as time machines, reconnecting us with people we used to know, as well as new people: http://www.endofcyberspace.com/2008/09/web-20-time-mac.html
Dear Alex,
Thank you for visiting and commenting.:O) I love what you wrote "time machines". It is, as much as we think of the web as the future,it is a repository of our past as well. :O) ophelia