LinkedIn concentrates too much on paid employment

brian_d_foy on 2006-01-10T18:49:23

Every couple of months someone reminds me that I have a LinkedIn account by sending me a connection inviatation. This time, I followed the link the endorse the inviter. As part of that, I have to select a relationship. Unfortunately, LinkedIn is tied to the Old World notion that people make connections by working in the same company. I couldn't choose something like "I've worked with him on an open source project".

I realize that the endorsements verify the employment data, but I don't have to work for the same company to verify that. It's the general failing of all these sorts of networks for me. I just don't fit into their models.

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Linking In

n1vux on 2006-01-11T20:22:50

You've got a strong point there.

How about if you listed "Perl Project" or other F/LOSS projects as a "company" and "Contributor" or whatever as the title, with dates overlapping your paid gigs? People do have multiple overlapping jobs sometimes. And internships aren't paid but are worth listing. So this is no different, really.

I'm assuming that as a consumer of your fine professional training services, you could link me, so I'll send you a link.

They also have "Organization Memberships" as an option that adds an Icon to your listing, that might be a way to make a connection, not sure, it doesn't offer the same easy-connect option, you'd have to spend an introduction on it.

Cheers,

Bill in Boston
n1vux

Answer on LinkedIn and FL/OSS

n1vux on 2006-01-12T18:36:51

Apparently you can make up companies ... Gentoo is a "company" for it's developers. "CPAN", "Perl5" and "Perl6" could be "company"s too.

Re:Answer on LinkedIn and FL/OSS

brian_d_foy on 2006-01-12T18:44:48

I really don't like that sort of kludgey solution because my complaint is the same: LinkedIn thinks that the only networking you do happens when there is an exchange of money.

I'm not looking for a solution, either, since I haven't had trouble networking. :)