A friend of mine has a note on Facebook saying that he uses Facebook for family friends, and that professional contacts who do not know his family should contact him on Linkedin rather than Facebook. This seems like a practical way of establishing a divide between personal and professional social networking, although it does condemn one to maintaining a presence on both. I loved Miss Crail’s portrayal of her professional and personal avatars on Linkedin and Facebook.
I have a Linkedin account, created when I received a flattering invitation to join, apparently from a contact. When I emailed the contact, he said that he was surprised by how many people he knew were on Linkedin. When I joined myself, Linkedin asked me whether it could go through my email address book: presumably the invitation had not been a personal one at all, but one generated by Linkedin from my contact’s address book. Sneaky.
Linkedin seems to be extensively used by students and former students in some subject areas, so it would potentially be useful for keeping in touch with them. And I hope to establish contacts with other librarians, although as The Lizard Lounge's husband points out, Cambridge librarians are already good at face to face networking.
I had one of those sneaky emails a while ago, too. It didn't persuade me to join (the 'sender' was someone I know only vaguely, and not from the same, or a useful, sector).
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteTold my hubby he was now famous by association regarding his comments on networking.
Have a good break.