I often think about this while on LinkedIn.
There has been a lot of debate over LinkedIn lately, it seems. In October, I was fortunate to be the keynote speaker at the DDi Leadership Forum; I spoke about recruiting and retaining the next generation. We started talking about the use of social media and social networking sites and the general opinion from the leaders was that LinkedIn is not a good use of their time. However, I offered a much different opinion and think it’s a great resource and tool for everybody, regardless of position within a company.
Where else can you find the correct person to talk to rather than get bounced around when you call a company?
Where else can you find out if you are calling the right type of company?
LinkedIn is a great resource for architects and engineers to identify business and design opportunities with developers. You might even find some potential clients are connected to you through a vendor, business associate, or even a good friend. What a much better introduction, through a trusted resource.
However, I have been noticing, more and more lately, how technology has created a new wave of couch potatoes….people who are just plain lazy. Though this is not true of everybody, the post is in reference to a particular case that happened to me recently which just seemed to rub me the wrong way. When I logged into my LinkedIn I noticed a message there; one of my connections forwarded a request from her connection, for me to forward to a client who could forward to his connection.
Is the room spinning yet? I know, it gets confusing how far away of a connection this is. To recap: A recruiter wanted to send a message to a transportation engineer. Since this person was not in his network, he sent the request to forward to person #2. Person # 2 sent it to me, asking me to send it to person #3. Then I would have to ask person #3 to send it along to the engineer. The recruiter is now sitting in his office waiting for all of us to forward an invite.
Pick up the phone. Why doesn’t this person just pick up his phone and call the engineer? Perhaps he might say he is not interested. Perhaps he might know some of his connections who are unfortunately out of work right now and will pass along his information. Perhaps.
In this scenario he would have more control. Rather, he sits on the computer and asks others to send his request.
I am not saying we should not use technology to help our business, help our cause, or help make our job easier; technology does allow us to answer communication at our convenience. But it also is turning us all into introverts.
Has technology slowly moved our society into looking-at-the-ground people? Are we so afraid of rejection that we would much rather text, email, instant message, or whatever else there is out there rather than look somebody in the eye?
What is the lesson learned here? Use technology, use LinkedIn, use text messaging, but only when appropriate. Don’t let it consume your life, but use it to make life easier. Why knock on one hundred cold doors, looking for business, when you could call 5 connections and ask them to introduce you to somebody specific (there is where LinkedIn comes in handy). You would be surprised at how many people cannot think of somebody to connect you with, but when asked about a specific person or connection they have, they are very willing to make the introduction.
**My disclaimer about LinkedIn: So far, I have 20 million people in my network (through 3 degrees). I build it because I think it is one of the current most valuable resources. I shutter at the thought of email blasting my network. I shutter at the idea of asking people for an introduction online. I will call the person to see if it is appropriate; it also gives me a good reason to follow up and spend time with relationship building.**
