A couple of months ago, B discovered the networking site Linked In, and it quickly became an obsession. Linked In is a professional networking website that allows you to create links to coworkers, classmates, and friends. When you're linked to someone, you can view all of the people to whom they are linked as well as all of the people to whom they are linked. As you build your own network, your extended network grows, and the number of people that you can view grows exponentially.
I resisted joining at first. Most of my friends are on myspace or Facebook (or both), but I've seen enough internet-predator shows to be wary of posting anything personal online. When a departing coworker told me that she was on the site, I decided to give it a shot--it seemed like a good way to be able to stay in touch with colleagues from past jobs.
When I first signed up, I was not impressed with the website. It is difficult to navigate and find the information that I am looking for. But eventually I was able to enter some of my job history and find people from my last company--that was very cool.
And then over the next few weeks, I started receiving invitations from other people--friends and coworkers--to join their networks. My network was starting to grow! I had built all of these connections without having to post any messages on people's profiles and without having to send long-winded "here's what's been going on in my life since we last talked" emails. It was easy but also rewarding to see my network growing.
I'm up to 21 connections (and counting!), but I have people in my network with (literally) hundreds of connections. I guess I have a long way to go before I am the most popular girl on Linked In.
