Online networks

I like getting to know new people, so you'd think networking would be easy for me. No. I get shy. I prefer others to make the first move, though once they have (especially in person), I'm usually easy to talk to. I prefer getting to know people in person, rather than impersonally online, but sometimes, needs must.

I’ve been using social networks now for many years – I first joined Facebook back in 2006 – but I’ve only recently been thinking about how I can use them professionally. I must say, I have to agree with Reid Hoffman (check the Thing 6 blog) in that LinkedIn is the office, Facebook is the barbecue in the back garden. In which case, I’ve only just started working in an office.

I really can’t see many people using Facebook for professional networking. In my own mind, it’s for keeping up with friends, for outside-of-work stuff, and I don’t know many people who’d use it in a professional capacity (I certainly wouldn’t want to like too much stuff that links with my job, but then I try to keep my work and home lives as separate as possible). Granted I’ve made friends there from previous work places, but once again it’s meant to be in a social way, not a work way.

We’re also back to the old problem of access to the sites. I have joined LinkedIn and LISNPN (though I don’t actually remember doing that one), but I’m unable to access them from one of my work sites due to social network restrictions. My other site is more lax, so I can update things as and when I remember, but that’s the crux: I’ve got to remember to do it. On the other hand, given that I have joined them, please feel free to find me and join my circle on LinkedIn (or whatever you call it). Regular readers of my blog will know my real name from Thing 3. For everyone else, and I’m assuming that’s everyone else in the entire world except for me, it’s Steve Collman. Or you might try searching for Community Outreach Librarian.

Now that I’ve got a Google+ account, I tried to search for people that might be good for networking purposes. However, once again I keep forgetting to check, so the one person I’ve put feelers out for, I don’t even know if he’s responded. And I don’t know if it really matters, because he’s been a Facebook friend of mine for about a year or two now, and if he’s got anything interesting to say, he usually links to it from there. There’s also the problem with Google+ that it just isn’t very widely used, as far as I know (it was marketed as the main competition to Facebook, but it hasn’t quite turned out like that). Again, if you want to find and add me, please do so!

I haven’t really tried joining any other networks so far. Mainly because I tend to forget when I’m at the one work site I can get to them (and obviously I don’t bother at the other one), and I just forget when I’m at home. I’ve got far more important things to do, such as play games, and try to finish the novel I’m working on. It’ll come, one day.