Avoid Bad e-Networking: The Unofficial Laws of Linked-In
by Jory Des Jardins

Months ago I was emailed by someone with some detailed technical questions about setting up her first blog. I rarely get down and dirty into blog implementations these days, but I got back to this person, a stranger, with some resources that she could refer to for more information. She got back to me a day later, asking for my interpretation of Paragraph A and B of the resources I'd sent her to. Then she asked if I would call her to go over her implementation.

Though I am a voice of BlogHer and support women online I was annoyed! This woman clearly had not read about my role at BlogHer, or researched other options of who could give her the help she required.

You might think, "What was this person thinking? She didn't even know you!" But consider this woman's position: she was a woman blogger seeking help with setting up a blog. I'm associated with a women's blogging org, and my email address was right there on our contact page. Why not just see what happens!

The automation of the networking process may make connecting with people easier, but it also makes it a lot easier for people whose needs and interests don't match yours to connect with you. Now imagine if this woman had pinged Steve Jobs for help with her blog. I get dork chills just thinking about it.

Unfortunately, being a good networker means having some uncomfortable moments when you have to deny requests. Linked-In has automated the process of putting people in the uncomfortable position of having to make these judgements. And because of this effect I believe you have to use this tool wisely.

I am what you might consider an evangelist of the social media; I see distributed media as the way of the future, and word-of-mouth as the most powerful form of marketing. I was just espousing to a group of small business folks how your Virtual Reputation means more now than it ever did. If you don't know you have one, you are in denial, and if you are not taking care of it, you'll be in trouble.

Still, I don't use Linked-In as my primary means of networking.

Don't get me wrong--I'm on Linked-In. I created a profile over two years ago, when the first few requests to be connected began to trickle in, and I update it occasionally. I see the value of tapping networks and appreciate that I can reference people's Linked-In profiles to get a good sense of their professional backgrounds. I have many contacts in Linked-In; people I have approved to include me in their list of connections. But I have not pursued anyone myself.

I still haven't really used the tool by searching for leads or scouring the networks of my contacts to see whom they know. Granted, I'm a slow adopter--I have yet to Twitter--nor do I have much time to troll profiles, but there is also a discomfort that I have with the tool. It encroaches on a fundamental belief I have about networking--I've always believed that a contact is only legitimate when there's been a proactive introduction and acceptance of the contact information.

Let me clarify: A "proactive" introduction is an organic introduction. A typical proactive networking situation (besides meeting someone in-person and exchanging information) would be chatting with someone who is inspired by your cause and offers to introduce you to a contact. A less-proactive, but still acceptable, form of introduction would be reaching out to your network for introductions to people that your contacts believe would be interested in connecting. Then the onus is on your network to speak up and offer contacts, or not. If they offer contacts they do so by choice.

Linked-In is permission-based--my contacts cannot get access to my other contacts without my permission. But when a contact askes me to connect them with another contact of mine, I'm sometimes uncomfortable. My reputation IS my contacts, and so is my judgement in sharing them. I believe in the democratizing effect of social media and its ability to connect people of like minds (and like needs). But within six degrees of separation are many sub-degrees of nuance, intuitive determinations of appropriateness that Linked-In cannot mechanize.

Recently a good friend pinged me through Linked-In, asking for an introduction to a fairly high-powered person in my network. While I wanted to help my friend, I did not believe it was appropriate to connect him to this person. In fact, I believe it would have caused this contact to question my judgement by bringing to him contacts that were not a fit with his business. There are times when I agree that it is appropriate to connect people and I make the introduction in a much more customized, personal way than by simply clicking on "Yes" and linking these people digitally.

I have some personal rules and limits for how I use Linked-In. I'll share and would love to hear some of yours:

1. Don't be a Connection Junkie: You knew these people Pre-Web-2.0: They had to get extensions on their Rolodexes to accommodate their thousands of business cards, a millionth of which they actually used. They back up their Palm Pilots daily to keep their contact database up to date. They have the biggest birthday parties and invite everyone from work and the neighborhood. They love to mix work and play, family and colleagues. They loved to seem well-known and well-connected. I know this type so well because I have connection junkie tendencies. I love bringing people together, and I still can't throw out the hundreds of business cards from days of yore.

The problem with Connection Junkies is that they are too willing to invite and share, and while they may connect you to some quality people from time to time, they also send over cousins of friends of friends looking for internships, neighbors selling cubic zirconia bracelets for the local basketball team, and Jehovah's Witnesses. These people also love to include you in their travelogues--even if you haven't seen them in 15 years, or send you tasteless jokes. Eventually we stop responding to email from these people--they just don't think enough before distributing your name to their Outlook Address Book.

To these people, Linked In is like a blue light special--THE PLACE online to wheel and deal. If I suspect I am being asked to approve a request by a Connection Junkie I don't respond. Sorry to offend.

2. Be a linker with limits: This next one treads on some touchy territory, but let's face it: professionally, you are who you know (and what you do, of course, but when networking your contacts are critical). If you don't give your virtual Rolodex proper care and feeding it's not worth very much. This means that you have to be clear about how you are defining your network, and whom it may include.

That means that my Nana stays in my personal address book and out of my Linked-In account. Likewise, college buddies, high-school sweethearts, even blog buddies stay out of my professional network unless they are in some relevant way associated with my work. This is not a hard and fast rule--I happen to have old high-school friends who are great professional contacts, but I'm cognizant of the fact that Linked-In isn't MySpace. Generally personal contacts are not there, which increases the professional value of my contacts. That said...

3. Be OK with saying No to introductions, and when you say yes, ask for permission from the other party. I've been asked for introductions to my literary agent, magazine editors I know, attractive female friends, and in all cases I run an appropriateness check before providing introductions, and if I'm on the fence, I ask for permission. Why? Because I don't want to be a Connection Junkie, or perceived as one. I want people to be excited about the projects and people that I bring to them, and that means not bringing to them inconvenience--opportunities that I know they will have to take the time to turn down. That's not networking that's direct marketing.

Recently I was asked by a good friend to connect his friend (a total stranger) to my literary agent. This was by no means a slam dunk for this person. I gave him a qualified yes: I would consider the introduction, seeing as it was requested by a him, but I would need to read the work first. Would my agent be excited to represent me if I simply forwarded any and all manuscripts her way? Don't think so. She's got enough unsolicited material to handle.

4. Know your place. Ewww that sounds so horrible! But I mean it. Just because someone is on Linked-In doesn't necessarily mean it's wise to contact her. I don't take for granted that all people have the properly calibrated radar for appropriateness. Perhaps they envision themselves as the next Erin Brockovich on a mission that's too important for such formalities as introductions. Men without this intuitive quality might pitch Steve Jobs if they saw him standing in the next urinal stall.

One of my worst jobs ever was in a strategic sales position, where just by virtue of being within 100 yards of an SVP meant I had to "go get 'im!" In a word: Ick.

You have to consider what the lives of your contacts are like, and that they will likely hand off your info to someone else. Salespeople know this inherently and charm the gatekeepers of the world. They work their way up the food chain, in business speak, and are patient for the appropriate introductions. A long-awaited, qualified introduction is a thousand times more profitable than a cold call to someone who doesn't know you.

None of my "rules" imply that I think Linked-In isn't useful. But I question full reliance on any tool that allows people to avoid the hard work of authentic connection. In the end, real connections seal the deal.

Jory Des Jardins also blogs at Pause.

Submitted by Jory Des Jardins (view blog) on Tue, 05/15/2007 - 23:01

Comments

 

Yes the whole thing needs a

Yes the whole thing needs a re think and people obviously NEED VERY clear boundaries set for them to understand networking and appropriate boundaries of the other
tragic really
Vita

Submitted by Vita lingus on Sun, 08/19/2007 - 23:54
 

Connections

Great post as always, Jory.

To your rule #3 - I used to be a talent scout in the music business and part of my job was to listen to any and all unsolicited material. In fact, one of my best finds came when a co-worker asked me to go see some friends of hers. I would listen to anything a friend asked me to even if they couldn't vouch for the quality. The problem came when friends or the musician they connected me to wouldn't accept my professional judgement. If you make a connection then I think you have to respect the person you've asked to connect with. No means no - not an invitation for continued persistence to just see the error of their ways should they choose not to invest in the project, grant an interview, offer a job or pursue a contract.

If anyone asks you for a contact and you can't be sure that the person asking will treat the contact with professional courtesy or if you can't trust yourself not to exercise detachment because you care too much about the person you're connecting then respectfully decline to make the connection.

Submitted by Maria Niles on Tue, 05/15/2007 - 20:57
 

Totally agree

M--love the pic, by the way!

I totally agree here. Sometimes, if I sense that too much is riding on this intro, and that it might not yield what the requester wants, I back off. Why get invested in someone else's drama? I've learned that it's not up to me to bend over backwards--maybe the first time, my choice, but not to ensure that all turns out well.

Jory Des Jardins
BlogHer
Personal Blog Pause

Submitted by Jory Des Jardins on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 07:29
 

Non-, Ex-, Anti- Connection Junkies

Having lived and worked in various countries and through various career changes, my network of people is a very hodgepodge organism. Therefore, I would think it presumptuous of friends, family, or business contacts to think that they have free access to my network. Not all nodes connect together. Not all lines remain intact or are of uniform thickness.

It’s important for others to realise that our networks are very personal and, as such, they experience continual organic growth and depletion. We all (non-, ex-, anti-Connection Junkies)have to respect boundaries of person, place, and time concerning other people’s networks.

Hypothetically, if I knew you, and I wished to connect to someone you knew, I would ask you for information about how you best thought I could make that connection. Asking for advice or information from someone you know is reasonable, don’t you think? It opens up the possibility of that person expressing an honest reaction: enthusiasm, worry, encouragement, or, constructive critique. In the best case scenario, if you truly think the connection would be advantageous on both sides, you can volunteer as an initiator towards that contact. In a worse case scenario, you can just say you do not think the idea is a good one. Surely, you have the right to decide one way or another.

lia from luebeck, germany

Author of the media safe 101 page on the Red Tent Blog and the personal yum yum cafe

Submitted by Lia on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 04:35
 

That's a reasonable middle ground

Lia,

Now there's a softer rule that I like. Asking for advice is often the best way to get what you want!

--JD

Jory Des Jardins
BlogHer
Personal Blog Pause

Submitted by Jory Des Jardins on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 07:30
 

Invaluable

These tips are wonderful. Thanks for writing this, Jory. Like you, I am on Linkedin. I've looked at the contacts of some of my contacts and thought, hmmm... is this really useful to me? The information in a Linkedin profile isn't sufficient for me to make contact with a total stranger. I would really need to talk to someone who knows that person to find out whether reaching out to that individual is appropriate and useful.

So far, it's been most helpful when I want to see what someone I've known in the past is up to now. I'll be thinking about something that I'd like to get more information about, and I'll remember so-and-so with whom I used to work who did that kind of thing. Linkedin has been a handy way of finding out whether that person is likely to be current on the issue I have a question about.

One of the reasons I find your post so valuable though, is that its rules apply not only to e-networking, but to networking in general. Networking is a skill that one usually develops through socialization. If you don't come from a social background in which these skills would naturally be taught, it's all too easy to make innocent mistakes that can be fatal to your career. I think one of the most important things that we can do to help people from non-traditional backgrounds succeed in the business world is to make some of these unwritten rules explicit. This you have done in a way that is clear, accessible and non-judgmental. Thanks again.

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|Contributing Writer, Online Journalism Review

Submitted by Kim Pearson on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 11:57
 

Thank YOU Kim

You touched on the underlying topic here: socialization and not having access to this type of socialization before abusing technology meant to enhance it. The goal is to get people up to speed on the socialization aspect before arming with the technology to spam millions!

Jory Des Jardins
BlogHer
Personal Blog Pause

Submitted by Jory Des Jardins on Thu, 05/17/2007 - 15:14
 

I'm Linked In!

So funny that you just posted this because just this week my boss sent me a Linked In Let's Connect. I'm an executive assistant, and I was unsure if it was appropriate even in the entertainment industry. Still, he asked me - I wouldn't have done it the other way around.

At the same time, it's not like I talk about my blogging at work - but I do list it on my linked in. So I gave the connection some thought. It was an interesting situation to me.

I also got a request to make a connection recently that I had to pass on. I definitely try to be careful with that sort of stuff and look at my connections on Linked In much differently than my connections on MySpace!!!

Linked In was useful when I was unemployed. It has the unbeatable benefit of helping you stay in touch with former coworkers.

So glad to read a post about this stuff!

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess and On The Lot.

Submitted by Liz Rizzo on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 13:43
 

Building a trusted network

Hi Jory,

Thank you for a very thoughtful post. I've been at LinkedIn for about 6 months now and one of the areas that I'm focusing on is educating our users on how to network effectively. It's something that we definitely need to do better, because when someone has a bad experience via LinkedIn, they tend to associate it with our service rather than the social ineptitude of the offending person. Before I joined LinkedIn, I was pretty liberal with my own linking and cringe to think of the many faux pas that I've been guilty of myself. Your "unofficial" guidelines are great, here are some of my observations after being "officially" LinkedIn:

1. An invitation means that "I will potentially help you with my network." It's an offer of value. My criteria: coworkers (since I want all my coworkers to be as successful as possible), friends (ditto), people that I have reciprocal business relationships with (ie business partners), people who help me do my job (in my case, the media), people I've worked with and trust, and anyone else who I respect and/or want to help out.

2. Connecting means you're agreeing to collaborate. It's a gesture of trust, it means that you can now ask me to introduce you to someone I know. This doesn't mean I will, but it means I will seriously consider it. My criteria for making introductions: "Is this a credible opportunity for both people? Will they thank me even if the specific business connection doesn't happen."

3. Give before you ask and build your network before you need it. The worst time to network is when you need something. If you find ways to help other people achieve their goals the laws of reciprocity will generally work in your favor. (Karma's an awesome power).

People who have zillions of connections and pass along requests indiscriminately don't understand how to use LinkedIn as a trusted tool. LinkedIn's designed to help you build upon existing relationships and leverage the trust that you have with these people to reach others.

That's my take from the inside. Keep blogging, this is great stuff!

-Kay

Kay Luo
LinkedIn

Submitted by kluo on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 18:54
 

I read your post at Linked-In

Very nice clarifications, Kay!

Jory Des Jardins
BlogHer
Personal Blog Pause

Submitted by Jory Des Jardins on Thu, 05/17/2007 - 15:15
 

Good points for any networking

Jory, I love this post as it's not just good for e-networking but for any sort of professional networking. I have numbers to some very important people that people always want to meet and have 'just five minutes' with, but I say no more than yes. My e-networking is obviously not where yours is, but I have had some success in asking people who know people that I want to get to know for contact info, and they have often obliged. Either way, it's all about being careful as to who you let in and give that access to. Of course following that rule in any industry is key to sustaining long lasting professional relationships.

Heather B.
Personal Blog: No Pasa Nada
BlogHer CE: Business, Career & Personal Finance

Submitted by HeatherB on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 19:30
 

Reputation Is Everything

Hi Jory,

This was a great post on an important topic.

To give the woman who wrote to you the benefit of the doubt, as a newbie blogger I know that approaching the blogosphere can be overwhelming and if you feel like you have a human connection to help you, that can alleviate the intimidation factor greatly.

I also feel that when you first make contact with Blogher, it's not totally obvious until you dig deeply into the site that the posts on the home page are not by just your average blogger, but by professionals who write continuous posts for the site.

This woman's mistake was in not minding her manners like her mother taught her, thanking you for your help and then going off to research the many resources out there for new bloggers.

Having said that, I totally agreed when you wrote:

"I was just espousing to a group of small business folks how your Virtual Reputation means more now than it ever did. If you don't know you have one, you are in denial, and if you are not taking care of it, you'll be in trouble."

I've always felt throughout my employment life that reputation is everything. You don't necessarily have to be the best at absolutely everything, but if you are perceived as committed and reliable, that will take you far.

That principle has to extend to your online life as well. I work in the media and am often asked to provide connections for people who want to break into the business. I never, ever do it unless I truly believe that the person will fill a need that someone is looking for and that my recommendation of that person will in no way call my judgement or my networking ethics into question.

And I learned long ago the value of that little two letter word, "No."

M.Smith
Megan's Minute

Submitted by Megan Smith on Thu, 05/17/2007 - 09:47
 

I should give this lady some slack, right?

But yes, manners also play a role. Like with any networking situation we have to remember others are doing favors for us. Sometimes we forget that in online situations. We may not send thank you notes anymore, but dammit, I still like em!

Jory Des Jardins
BlogHer
Personal Blog Pause

Submitted by Jory Des Jardins on Thu, 05/17/2007 - 15:16
 

But don't over use

Jory, I love this. Very important and valuable information.

I think another important one when it comes to networking (maybe this would be under "know your place") is to know when you have worn out your networking welcome. Sometimes people are more than willing to help, network you and support those connections, but it is important to be aware of when that person/connection is over you--so to speak.

Basically, be careful to take care of your relationships use them sparingly if necessary. And for goodness sake, have more than one go to person because you never know when you will be un-LinkedIn by them (whether you know it or not!) ;-)

~Jenn~
Mommy Needs Coffee | Mommybloggers
BlogHerContributing Editor, Mommy and Family

Submitted by Jennifer Satterwhite on Thu, 05/17/2007 - 10:53
 

Excellent tips, Jory.

Excellent tips, Jory. :D

--
Bill Cammack
Video Editor
BillCammack.com

Submitted by Bill Cammack on Sat, 05/19/2007 - 13:07
 

Use care & feeding of your LinkedIn network

Glad to see someone take the time to point this stuff out. The LIONs honestly scare me. When I get a request to connect that is obviously shallow/spammy, I "apologize" and tell them "I promised my network that I will only connect with people I have worked with and know."

I think LinkedIn's 'whisper-down-the-lane' can be used well if the recipient's needs are put first, NOT the sender's. Like all networking, it has to be non-selfish. When you really want to reach out, ask for very small things like mini-informational interviews, requests for expertise, etc. Things that will make the recipient feel good about responding (and ditto for the conveyers in between).

When you have to say "no" as a conveyer, often you can say "I don't think X is responding to stuff like that right now, maybe if you ..." and offer whatever other approach (including not making the request at all) you can think of.

But the most important thing for me is that LinkedIn is just a "placeholder" tool to keep the lines of communication open. It is up to you to keep the relationship going, and you do that by showing a genuine interest in people and doing whatever small favors come naturally along the way (a link to an article in their field, etc.).

Thanks for the post, and I look forward to reading more of your blog.

Cheers,
Laura

Pistachio Consulting "When You've Got Something to Say"
http://GPMB.wordpress.com

Submitted by pistachio on Mon, 05/21/2007 - 13:06
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