The Future of LinkedIn - Why to NOT Connect

There has been a lot said about the future of LinkedIn - mostly by individuals who see LinkedIn as boiling down to a glorified friend/resume database which will struggle in the future to stay relevant as it becomes the exclusive mainstay of headhunters. Others think that LinkedIn is too "false" - meaning it relies too heavily on what you say about yourself and not what people say about you.

However, the CEO of LinkedIn has been clear - LinkedIn is about understanding economic connections, not friendship connections. Not building a big network of people you think like you (like Facebook), or trying to get as many people to find your random thoughts interesting (like Twitter), or perfectly framed pictures of your culinary delights (Instagram). But a large, meaningful professional network which forms the backbone of your professional existence.

"We want to digitally map the global economy, identifying the connections between people, jobs, skills, companies, and professional knowledge - and spot in real-time the trends pointing to economic opportunities" - Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn

Some people think, that the more people you are connected with, the more powerful a business person you will be. I however, have a different take whether you should connect with everyone you know or not on LinkedIn. As someone who has tens of thousands of followers on many other networks (on MySpace! D'oh...) - I no longer have the inherent thirst to get everyone to connect with me on every network. On LinkedIn - I'd rather have a few key people connected with me that matter to the growth of my business and career. I think future generations will know this organically, as we haven't yet developed the cultural scarring to prevent us from the digital discomfort of over-connecting.

Think about it this way - very soon, "mobile" will gradually morph into "wearable" which will become indistinguishable from "cyborg". And by this, I mean, you will one day soon have some gadget attached to your head (or right in your eyeball) that gives you access to information automatically without having to dig for it - some sort of EyeBall Buddy. (*RANT* I'd look at you, Google Glass, but ignoring us Canadians is tantamount to cultural discrimination *RANT*). Side note - The Apple Watch came out today! We are one step closer!

Imagine for a second walking through a group of people and being able to "see" information about them out of the corner of your eye. It makes sense, just like being able to "listen in" to what they are saying, that you could listen in on their "digital publicized thoughts". For this purpose, Twitter is the perfect data source. Also, it makes sense that you will be alerted to what your friends are doing (like meeting someone new, or buying a drink). For this, the Facebook or Swarm (Foursquare) data.

There are already apps that will give you info on close-by potential romantic dates (Tinder) or lost dogs (Bark Buddy) - and even a fledgling network designed to capture your professional network and help you connect with opportunities (People+ - also, not available in Canada). But Facebook and Twitter are about different elegant organizations of information - and Google Plus - given it's recent dropping of the authorship information - isn't the future of professional network information either.

At the end of the day - imagine you are walking through a crowded trade show and you want your EyeBall Buddy to highlight everyone that you have worked with before, want to work with in the future, or met the last time you were here - and immediately be reminded of their name and their particulars, and their skills - and how they measure up professionally. All in a little floating box above their head, that only you see.

What if everyone in the crowd had a box over their head?! You wouldn't be able to cope with or absorb all of the information. Your connections database should only point out the people that are truly meaningful and important to you right this very second to your eyeballs. If you only care about what was at the cafe for breakfast - go use Instagram. If you want to do some business (read: you want the little boxes of professionalism to follow around) - make sure your LinkedIn profile is tight and specific.

Here is where your LinkedIn connections start to be something you should love and manage and prune - not something that just grows wildly out of control. You don't want to spend your limited time shaking hands with everyone, or you won't get to the people you should be talking to. You should only connect with;

1. People you do business with, or want to do business with.
2. People you work with or you'd like to work with.
3. People with similar professional skills you'd like to share.
4. Existing and potential clients.
5. Famous people (why not!)

And you shouldn't connect with;

1. People who will bother you incessantly (Real Estate Agents, Mortgage Brokers, etc.)
2. Candidates for working at your company (they can't all get hired, and then you'll have competitors in your head)
3. Competitors (Um, do you really want them poaching your life's work?)
4. People who will snipe your talent, or your co-workers (headhunters!)
5. Random connections you picked up "for the sake of it".

This is just one man's opinion, but I have an easy-to-follow Acid Test for allowing people into my network:

ACID TEST: Only have people that you want to remember their names in real life in your personal network - so the next time you are walking down the street, you'll remember their names from their LinkedIn profiles.

Go through your connections once and a while, and consider removing "issue people", who might pollute your network and bug your other connections with introduction requests. LinkedIn isn't Twitter. Just go to their profile (with stalking-mode off), and disconnect yourself from them. On their profile, just go to "Remove Connection" under "Send a Message";

If they just want to know what you are talking about - they can just follow you, they don't have to be a connection.

Taking this logic a little further - you could actually use your LinkedIn database as a memory tool for business. There is an App called LinkMonic (https://www.linkmonic.com) which does exactly that [FULL DISCLOSURE - my team built this for me, and now we sell it] - by giving you cue cards on all of your connections and testing you on it - until we can finally get an EyeBall Buddy up and running.

Bottom line: Don't build your LinkedIn network for today. Build it for the soon tomorrow, where the pollution of too much data outweighs the fun of a million connections.