Quickie/Rant: LinkedIn Contact Lists
Am I the only person who thinks is almost rude to hide your Contact List from your connections on LinkedIn? I’m not advocating opening it up to the whole world, but if you are going to have someone as a contact, isn’t it just part of the deal that you’ll let them look through the other folks you are connected to in order to, you know, do some possible networking with your friends-of-friends? I actually don’t much care for the “official” means of referring people down the chain in LinkedIn (why spend friend capital on such impersonal introductions?), but the ability to know who is “2-degrees” away and then make a personal request to have a personal introduction seems like the quintessential purpose of even being in LinkedIn in the first place. Though, when I think about my own use of LinkedIn it ends up just being primarily a glorified contact list of folks I want to stay in touch with, so perhaps “quintessential” is a bit strong. If you don’t trust someone to not abuse knowledge of whom you know, why have them as a “contact” in the system anyway? I would have thought it basic social software etiquette.
Tangent: I remember in the early 90s when the Internet was first getting attention with a “mainstream” audience there were all sorts of tutorials about “netiquette” — the idea being that if you were new to the Internet you might not understand how things are done there (here). It seems downright quaint to think of that now — even to think of the Internet as a single place with a single culture is so outdated that it’s hard to imagine it was only a decade ago things were so different (my, how quickly a decade can pass!).
So, if you are reading this and don’t allow your contacts in LinkedIn to see your other contacts, consider changing your settings. Or, consider helping me to better understand…
I agree 100%. It’s not much of a networking service if you don’t show your network!
Comment by Brian — August 3, 2006 @ 9:04 am
Absolutely right, without showing your contact list it is just a dumbed down resume or a glorified, “Look how many people I know” list.
Comment by Steve S — August 21, 2006 @ 1:21 am
I’m one of those that doesn’t show it. This is the aspect of LinkedIn that I like - it helps people connect while allowing a little opacity to make any rejection a little easier. My connections are from all over the board, they don’t have a lot in common. Some I barely know, as I connect with people if I’ve met them just once, to avoid being rude in that way. I shield my busy, in-demand contacts from these types, by hiding their names. I just prefer that to having to say, “no, I don’t want to connect you, someone I’ve met once, to my high-profile friend, who I know from experience will not want to meet you”.
If I could expose my contacts just to certain contacts, I’d do that, but as I understand it, it’s an all or nothing switch. Or if all my contacts shared all their contacts, I’d do it. I just don’t feel making their names public was part of the deal when they connected to me.
My 2 cents.
Comment by Nancy T — August 31, 2006 @ 11:18 pm