Too LinkedIn?
Is anyone else creeped out by the intelligence of the LinkedIn system?
I joined it years ago from the e-invitation of a guy I met randomly who was one of the best networkers I'd ever met. At 27, he was already a VP at his company and had hundreds of contacts in his "network." I joined but didn't touch the thing to start building my own virtual network until last year in graduate school. Mostly thanks to the size of my graduate school class, I've edged my network up to 63 people. But I am constantly amazed at the other people the system singles out as "contacts" for me.
Sometimes when you accept an invitation to link up from a friend or colleague, LinkedIn brings up a screen to suggest other people in the system that "You Might Know." Usually it's other people you graduated with or worked directly with at one of your various jobs. But every once in a while, a seemingly completely random name pops up.
For example: A few months ago, the "You might know" prompt suggested a friend in DC whom I knew somewhat informally through my softball league. We had no professional ties or connections... but somehow the system associated us and floated me his name.
Or, more creepily, today I logged on and that same screen gave me the name of a random boy I met online and went out on a date with.
Seriously? I mean, really? Is this system monitoring all your online activities? Is LinkedIn really Big Brother under a more friendly moniker? Or are we really all cosmically connected in more ways than we could ever imagine? Forget six degrees. Maybe it's more like 2 or 3.
I joined it years ago from the e-invitation of a guy I met randomly who was one of the best networkers I'd ever met. At 27, he was already a VP at his company and had hundreds of contacts in his "network." I joined but didn't touch the thing to start building my own virtual network until last year in graduate school. Mostly thanks to the size of my graduate school class, I've edged my network up to 63 people. But I am constantly amazed at the other people the system singles out as "contacts" for me.
Sometimes when you accept an invitation to link up from a friend or colleague, LinkedIn brings up a screen to suggest other people in the system that "You Might Know." Usually it's other people you graduated with or worked directly with at one of your various jobs. But every once in a while, a seemingly completely random name pops up.
For example: A few months ago, the "You might know" prompt suggested a friend in DC whom I knew somewhat informally through my softball league. We had no professional ties or connections... but somehow the system associated us and floated me his name.
Or, more creepily, today I logged on and that same screen gave me the name of a random boy I met online and went out on a date with.
Seriously? I mean, really? Is this system monitoring all your online activities? Is LinkedIn really Big Brother under a more friendly moniker? Or are we really all cosmically connected in more ways than we could ever imagine? Forget six degrees. Maybe it's more like 2 or 3.
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