Networking, too much or too little!!

I have to admit, I read more than 2 articles, in an effort to find one focus for me to write about. All the assigned readings got me thinking about my networking status and what I should be doing now and every day. In one of our consulting classes, I asked a Deloitte consultant what's the chance for getting a job if you do not know an insider, and her response did not surprise me. It was exactly what the articles imply. Networking is everything.

Now that I remembered that fact, I directly logged in to my linkedIn Account and tried to remember people that I have worked with before and have not been in touch with for a while and sent them an invtation. One of the invitations was for a friend I rarely see, who actually works at Deloitte. I also was happy to see my contact list growing to 81 people, not bad for just recently joining LinkedIn, right?

Now, after the readings, I got mixed up signals, maybe it's just me, but I thought I would bring it up. In Lindsky's article, he mentioned "Let one pushy semi- outsider into your network, and you've polluted it", while Ryan Mapes, emphasized that weak contacts can come in handy in a business opportunity and that its better to build the biggest network possible.

After giving this too much thought, few questions popped in my head; Is having more contacts in my profile better, or should I only add people that I really trust and have a smaller network?? Should I aim at increasing my network and include people I just know on the professional level, or should I make sure I know them really well? How much influence will my LinkedIn profile have on any potential employer, and does that change from one employer to the other? Can one employer perceive things negatively while others see it positively. It's all questions that I would love to find answers for. For the time being, I am happy with my job and not looking for one, but I know I might decide to leave any minute. I guess though that until I find answers to my questions, I will just stop hating networking, and try to do more of it. What do you think?

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Too many cooks....

After reading Stross's article in the NYTimes, I couldn't stop thinking about the Fairfax county Parktakes service. For those who are not familiar with it, it is a set of services that Fairfax County provides through its recreation centers, whether it be a list of summer camps or 4 week swimming classes, you name it, it is all there. The first time I checked the service was of course, when I had my first son who I wanted to register in a swimming class at 18 months.

Well, the registration was easy and I created an account on the site, as a Fairfax County resident. What I noticed then is that instructor names or rankings were not pusblished. To make a long story short, I was not pleased with the class, neither did I think the class was appropriately sized. It ended up being a waste. That experience made me reluctant to register my kid in another swimming class with the county. I was even looking for private lessons, which tend to be expensive, depending on where you end up going.

On the other hand having too many reviews did not help me this last weekend either. I actually looked up a restaurant on Yelp before going there this Saturday. We were told by an Italian friend that it was one of the best Italian places to have pizza (I wont mention the restaurant name so I wont sound like I am writing a review). The restaurant was Ok, acceptable atmosphere and very family oriented. The tables were uncommonly high and shaky, but I was not impressed at all with the food. My point behind this is that in both situations of having no feedback or plenty of it, I did not matter.

I keep on asking myself, if there was a magic formula to know for a fact what's good and what's not. Maybe we will get to a point where we can determine whose review to take into account or not from a personal perspective. I know its true to please everybody, but I guess if all else fails, we go back to the old way of trusting our own instinct, RIGHT!!

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