LinkedIn, what a gap it can bridge
I used to like LinkedIn much more than I do now, but one thing I do like about them is the gap they bridge between people. I currently have 39 connections, 3 of those connections have more than 500 connections themselves. One is Jeremy Zawodny, another is Corey, who networks like crazy for his VC company, and the last is Roger who has traveled all over the U.S. for work and connects with a lot of people on a normal basis. The other 36 connections all have less than or equal to 180 connections so you can really see a huge contrast it the number of connections others have.
I have tried to keep my connection list limited to those that I know or that I have a legitimate reason to be connected to. I know Roger personally, Corey commented on a previous LinkedIn post and said I could add him. I do not know Corey other than his comment, but his role in the VC community may help my connections, or he may be looking for people within my connection list so he is an overall good connection to have. Jeremy is someone I have followed off and on, mainly because of his role in the MySQL community, but also because he was a pretty popular guy. I have found his blog to be very interesting and if I ever needed someone to consult with about MySQL he would probably be the one.
The rest of my connections have all been people I have met at conferences and had conversations with after the event, someone I have been friends with, a family friend, or people I have worked with. Networking is very important, but I have really tried to keep it to closer relationships.
Tonight I was talking with Jermaine about famous people within companies and how I don’t know the names of an incredible number of well known people. He said, “you know of Kevin Rose”, right after that I searched LinkedIn for Kevin Rose. What surprised me is that he only has 118 connections, which was shocking when you consider how well known he is. My guess would be he either doesn’t use/like LinkedIn or he is picky like me about who he connects with. The other shocking thing is that 5 of my 39 connections we connected with Kevin, so over 10% of the people I know connected with him and almost 5% of the people he is connected with are connected to me. Maybe it is just me, but I find that to be pretty crazy. I have never met Kevin, other than using Digg and seeing him on his online videos and TechTV I haven’t had any interaction with him. We are also 2500 miles across the U.S. from each other. Maybe it is just me, but I think that is just wild given the number of people in the U.S. Now if I was well known it would not surprise me because once you are well known you will naturally connect with other well known individuals.
So my point is that this is very much like the theory that people are only 6 people apart from knowing each other.
