OT: Is LinkedIn actually good for anything?

ace.

Big Grin... Similar story. Since it's gone public I'm getting these updates everyday telling me about new links... waste of time. I'm thinking of linking-out. (If it will let me?)

George H.

I too have been on linkin for many years.

The groups I have followed (like usenet) have too many question from Indian students asking for help with homework.

The only job offers I have seen are in India.

Yes, its like to link-out.

hamilton

The only value I get out of it is keeping track of, and tracking down, former colleagues. Beyond that -- joining the forums has been mostly a waste of bandwidth.

I think I've gotten at least one contract from my presence there -- but that was in the way of being kept track of as a former colleague, not through a forum.

I've also seen questions from new engineers that looked like they got through school by asking questions on forums. Mostly from developing or lately-developed countries. It makes me think that there's still hope for US engineering.

I've seen some solid job offers on the local Portland IT group -- but none that relate to me; they're all for beezwax programmer types.

If nothing else, getting messages telling me about my colleagues who are now connected to other people reminds me that I should "network" more.

It is also interesting to hear about some of the activities of some of my colleagues (that post about them).

LinkedIn hasn't created any new business or anything for me, but if one of my clients asks for a "connection" to me I will gladly oblige.

They allowed my previous employer to cancel my LinkedIn messages to former co-workers. It is not even the best way to waste time.

--Winston

In the beginning I was skeptical. Then, out of the blue, I got a consulting assignment from a large corporation. They didn't tell me how they found me, all a bit secretive so maybe they weren't supposed to. As a consultant one learns not to ask too many non-technical questions, it's bad style. But I saw that pretty much the whole big team I worked with is on LinkedIn. So ... probably they found me there.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. A former colleague found me on LinkedIn and sent me an invite. Seconds after I accepted and sent him a cordial message he shot back an email that he knows someone who may need my expertise. An email from his friend followed, VP of R&D at a start-up. Then we had a long chat on the phone. It sure looks like this could become a new client for me because I have some rare species skills similar to yours, just in a different field.

Now it's not that it wouldn't work without LinkedIn. In the last case there was also a path via another client of mine where I heard about this at the same time. But LinkedIn makes it fairly easy to find people you remember from the past and an invite puts you in instant contact without having to scramble for the latest email address for a person.

The forums there, well, they are not nearly as efficient as s.e.d. But then again, none of the web-based forums is or likely ever will be. I do participate in some where I think the expert levels are reasonable, no homework questions from certain areas. Due to the fact that the GUI has way too much fluff and LinkedIn does not even master proper threading it'll likely stay on an anemic level with most of their forums.

Long story short, I'll sure stay with LinkedIn.

It _may_ be good for recruiting at only $200 for an advert. Maybe for looking for employment, but you're competing against folks who put a lot of time into Linkedin- they tend to be the same ones that join every engineering association and so on for self-promotion. I did find one quite extraordinary fellow through them- the kind of person you grab even though he's not needed right away.

I do use it to keep track of my former colleagues, that's true. The social media marketing folks seem to own the forums. (Parasites.)

And I'm reaching the point of needing to expand some--I need a part-time technician who can do a bit of AVR and ARM Cortex M3 programming as well as relatively simple prototype PCB layout and assembly (Sunstone is okay). If there's anybody round the NYC area who is interested, drop me a line.

Hacker/makers with a portfolio are welcome to send it to me as well--most of my stuff is mixed-technology, and I learned most of my engineering by doing. A fire in the belly is more important than a long resume.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I have been on for a little while. I find it useful to be able to find and communicate with old collegues. I probably should use it more via posting and such, but I don't take that much time with it.

Charlie

Most of the folks I know in your area are on LI. Considering there is no bridge across the sound I assume that's probably way too gruesome of a commute to your place, right?

Tim Wescott expounded in news:HpmdnU4ceq7nOMLTnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@web-ster.com:

..

I've put LinkedIn on the gmail spam list from time to time, so I don't have to keep dealing with the updates. But then sometimes I relent -- but it only lasts for a little while.

Warren

For example, from the Embedded application professionals group ...

What is porting of RTOS? What are it's advantages and disadvantages? Can you give me some sites/books as to refer on how to port RTOS and why?

However, I joined a couple of weeks ago, and have found it invaluable for catching up with former colleagues.

Cheers

Similar experience. All the contacts are essentially spam, people trying to "network", namely sell me stuff.

It was fairly difficult to cancel.

John

I'm not on LinkedIn, yet they sent me so much unwanted mail - and wouldn't honor my requests to stop unless I joined them - that I put a permanent email block on them at the firewall.

You can set all that. For groups you subscribed to, do it there. If it's the general update emails that bother you hover the mouse over your name, click on settings and set the email frequency to "no email" for anything you don't want. I have the digest sent to once a week because occasionally there is something useful in there.

Just looked, there are still hundreds of other John Larkins on there, eight of them in the San Francisco area. Your clan must have been rather reproductive over the last few hundred years :-)

Depends where. Brooklyn or northern Queens isn't too bad--it's about 40 minutes to Laguardia airport from here. Farmingdale or that neighbourhood would be a bit too ugly to do regularly.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

They are ever farther out :-(

There is LIRR but then you'd have to rely on more than one connection I guess, and that gets old.