I was pretty excited to check my Yahoo inbox last week and see that a Lieutenant Commander I had worked with many moons ago had "endorsed me on LinkedIn." I have a grand total of one LinkedIn endorsement* (plus a pending one from someone who I worked for last year...I just need to get on his case about it - gently), and it means a lot to me. It's a paragraph long, it's heartfelt, and it could only come from someone who worked with me very closely in a very intense environment.
So when I checked my profile, I was eager to see what this Navy O-4 had written. What I found was that it was...nothing. LinkedIn has cheapened itself with the equivalent of Facebook "likes" in the sense that you can now mindlessly and effortlessly "endorse" people in area with a single, simple mouse click.
On my LinkedIn profile it now shows "Military," and "National Security." Just that. No explanatory bullet points or words, or anything to substantiate that. Someone has taken the one second or so to officially acknowledge that I was indeed once serving on active duty in the military. Then two other people who I don't even know from the military have seconded the notions, so to speak.
I will admit that my LinkedIn profile could use quite a bit of touching up/fleshing out, but this is certainly not what I had in mind.
I feel like going back and "endorsing" the ability of people I know to magically turn oxygen into carbon dioxide.
* I had blurred the distinction but here it is. A LinkedIn recommendation is where you can actually take the time to write something original and meaningful about a person you've collaborated with professionally. An endorsement is the cheap-o equivalent of a Facebook "like" that means less than nothing.
So when I checked my profile, I was eager to see what this Navy O-4 had written. What I found was that it was...nothing. LinkedIn has cheapened itself with the equivalent of Facebook "likes" in the sense that you can now mindlessly and effortlessly "endorse" people in area with a single, simple mouse click.
On my LinkedIn profile it now shows "Military," and "National Security." Just that. No explanatory bullet points or words, or anything to substantiate that. Someone has taken the one second or so to officially acknowledge that I was indeed once serving on active duty in the military. Then two other people who I don't even know from the military have seconded the notions, so to speak.
I will admit that my LinkedIn profile could use quite a bit of touching up/fleshing out, but this is certainly not what I had in mind.
I feel like going back and "endorsing" the ability of people I know to magically turn oxygen into carbon dioxide.
* I had blurred the distinction but here it is. A LinkedIn recommendation is where you can actually take the time to write something original and meaningful about a person you've collaborated with professionally. An endorsement is the cheap-o equivalent of a Facebook "like" that means less than nothing.
1 comment:
And people I have ever met, and out of my fields, wanting a link, like it is a form of Bingo.
Regards — Cliff
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