Over the past couple of weeks I've enjoyed some thoroughly engaging conversations. Some of these have occurred in real time, with actual real people, and some of them have been, well, online - no, before you raise an eyebrow i'm not talking online dating, but rather, my old trusty friend - LinkedIn.
I would love to know how to check how long my linkedin journey has been, but I don't quite know if it offers me that piece of information (unlike Facebook timeline which wasn't to share every detail of everything back to the year dot) - but I suspect it has been a good number of years.
In the beginning, as with most, I wasn't quite sure what LinkedIn actually did, or what I ought to put there - and I certainly hadn't discovered the Groups/Discussion Forums etc - which are if you ask me what makes the LinkedIn journey the experience that is it.
No doubt as its reputation grows - more and more online Cv's (not to over-state the main use of it here) will be popping up - but my hope, nay, my ardent wish really is that everyone will become involved, engaged and participate in the groups.
No matter how technically great we may think we are, groups show there are greater, no matter how much we think our new piece of kit is the best biggest and flashiest about, you'll likely find there are better, bigger and flasher!
What is it I'm trying to say - well - the journey and indeed the destination for me is all about the awesome people who share their experiences, their stories, their wisdom, knowledge, thoughts, theories, ideas, successes, challenges and at times failures - this is what makes it the most engaging (for me) of any 'social media' tool these days.
I've built up a great network of contacts, in no small part through discussion groups - I've learnt about things that would never have occurred to me in a professional sense before, and I've really seen humanity at it's best - people freely sharing their contacts, their knowledge of local jobs, great recruiters and so on.
Do you remember that opening scene (or was it closing) of love actually - you know, airports aren't full of messages of hate, they are full of messages of love. Now, I don't suggest for a minute that LinkedIn reposition itself as a professional dating site (though i bet it has happened) - but what I am saying is, is it just another way in which humanity shows itself to be so much more than the cold cruel capitalist world we so often think we live in.
