Oops. Looks like I jumped the gun on discussing LinkedIn on the last Thing. So HERE we are with professional networking. Different from social networking. I was actually trying to address the separation of personal and professional in the last Thing, and I ended up conflating discussion into one entry. I find this often happens in the world of online networking anyway, however, so we will let this one slide. Some overlap is inherent and inevitable, especially if a user is extremely active through both (or multiple) networks.
I am excited about this task, because, as I mentioned in Thing 6, I was actively working on my LinkedIn profile already. I just sent out an inquiry to someone who once offered to review resumes. While my employment status is currently active, I have had many changes in the past year-- pursuit of a Master's, internships, volunteer work, contractual employment in a historical society, additional professional memberships, etc., etc. In order to make a complete profile, I have been recently engaged in updating my resume as well-- a tall task in itself. This Thing, LinkedIn, is one to be carefully crafted and thoughtfully tended. Especially for those of us transitioning, or soon to be in transition, professional networking is an absolute must.
I have kicked off the account, but also have taken a lot of extra time crafting. The picture, surprisingly, was a bit of a project. I ended up taking one with my laptop at home and uploading it. In unrelated news, LinkedIn has an import option, which extracts data from an uploaded resume. I tried this also, but found that I really had to do more tweaking than it was worth to just hand-type. You know, formatting woes across platforms, always and forever.
LinkedIn wonderfully provides a venue for professional connectivity. However, as I am sure is the case with most everyone else as well, my friends started seeking me out for connections as soon as I created a profile. This melding of the personal and the professional leads to an interesting question: where do we draw that line? In an expose (accent on the "e"), of immaculate timing, there is, currently, a conversation going on through the ALA LinkedIn group on this exact topic. It's called, not shockingly, Personal/Professional Networking; is there a line between?, and it was started by user "Leif". You have to be a member to view it I believe, but why not join. We're all in the libraryish field, are we not? The group is open to join as long as you are able to state your purpose to the admin.
Most responses on this chain agree that accounts should be kept separate. It can be a challenge, though, especially when one ends up creating 14 accounts so that he or she can enjoy the connectivity of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SlideShare, and others, for both personal and professional networking. I was recently invited by a colleague to join "Google Plus" too, and to be perfectly honest, I have not even looked at what it is yet. I suppose I have to decide the nature of these accounts first, no? It seems overwhelming though, and it's definitely a bit of a philosophical battle as well-- be left behind, or be overwhelmed? Invisibility is death for a business, or library, or an archives, and perhaps it is so for a person as well (socially and professionally?). But, then, of course, time and resources must necessarily be expended to maintain all of the information sharing. I, for one, am going to take a deep breath and continue the expedition. If anyone has any Information Overload repellent packed in his Blog, do share.
Happy hunting, archivists!
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