expanding my network

I have capitulated (or seen the light) and created a Linkedin profile for myself. I have sent out a handful of invitations for people to link up with me (no surprise that the first accept came from my socially connected friend from friday's blog!), but being selective may not be the best strategy. Who knows? I'm not sure exactly what I'm expecting to achieve with this, but I can't really figure out the benefits unless I give it a try.

I read an article in the paper this morning about using networking sites for job-hunting purposes, which said you really need to use both Linkedin and Facebook in order to maximize your connections. I still think of Facebook as a student-driven thing, although I certainly know professionals use it also. Maybe I'll join if my daughter is willing to "friend" me...

I am enjoying twitter to the extent that I like the information that other people post. I've started to follow some HR folks outside of our class to expand my tweeter feed. I find that following the posted links by everyone (classmates, too) lead to very interesting articles, blogs, and podcasts that I wouldn't take the time to search out on my own. I followed one link that Steve Boese posted on Twitter: 8 ways to avoid overwhelming your follower's twitter stream. The advice was geared towards tweeting in a manner that wouldn't irritate one's followers by over-tweeting. http://bit.ly/v5Ly2

I'm not worried about overwhelming anyone with my additions; I'm much more likely to underwhelm. I worry that I'm not going to easily make the jump to the next step of active participation in these collaborative networks. I tend to be a pretty reserved person and I don't voluntarily share that much information about myself. Instead, I enjoy learning about other people and their interests. I'm afraid that I'll end up being one of those folks that posts once-in-a-blue-moon, which I hear is bad form. Blogging a few times a week is helpful; knowing I have a required number of posts to do forces me to share (and my apologies to all of you!) The next challenge for me will be to see if I can step outside of my normal comfort zone and start sharing voluntarily...