23 Things for Professional Development –Thing 6 (online Networks)

We have been asked in Thing 6 to blog about our experiences with social networking sites. Which ones are most useful and why? If we do not wish to use any, why? If we agree with the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, when he said: "Facebook is the backyard BBQ; LinkedIn is the office"?

It’s always a case of mixed feelings when it comes to social networking sites. As appealing as it looks and feels to see details of yourself splashed all over the internet when you search your name (it does boosts the ego, doesn’t it?), the downside is that we live in a world where identity fraud is something one should be aware of and think about before taking steps to putting so much information online. It can also be scary when you don’t know if the information you load onto the internet about yourself is going to get into the wrong hands. I have heard of someone who lost her job when she went on Facebook and wrote slanderously how tired she was of her organisation and could not wait to leave not imagining her boss would ever get to read the information. She went back to the office the next day to receive a termination letter. She was assisted to make up her mind.

I do have a Facebook account which I have used for personal fun in the last 3 years. I have enjoyed the thrill of linking up with old school mates who I might otherwise not have met ever again and it had been a good medium to catch up on news about what’s going on in our different lives. I have also used it to save so many pictures thinking that the internet is a way to make things like that last for ever.(But you never know).I have not ever used it for professional things. However, I have cooled off a bit lately because I found out that as useful as it makes it to link up with old friends, it also encourages many people I would rather not want to have anything to do with to have a peep into my personal life.

Linkedin is something I had considered so many times. Just like the quote from Reid Hoffman, Facebook is a relaxed, soft, personal way of projecting yourself while Linkedin is a formal, professional one but it does scare me in a way whenever I see my colleagues’ CVs staring me in the face on the screen without them even been aware of this. I ask myself if I really do want so much information about myself available to anyone who is interested. I have not put a seal to this because I know I may just attend a workshop one day and listen to the goody sides of that and get my mind changed. Maybe I should think of ways to use Linkedin to ‘project’ my ‘project’ (notice the pun?) Santawriteskids which I set up and designed myself last year.