Networking, schmetworking...

While the computers are chugging away at various work-tasks this morning, I've been trying to do a Sisyphean task -- get my Linkdin profile up to date.

I'm not out looking for work or anything. My company has just launched a major product, and shifted all the gears. And one of the tasks involved in that launch was for all of us to update our online stuff.  But for me it's a little more complicated.

I'm weird in this business in that I've been in the same position for over 12 years. No big company changes, just steady work. So updating my resume/CV and keeping all that up was way, way down on the totem pole in terms of what was getting done.  We've been hip-deep in a "transformative product change" for the last three years and I haven't been able to touch bottom, even with a long pole. So having one line-item in there representing that long a time looks really weird.

I didn't join LinkdIn for business reasons.  My monster-in-law joined because someone else told her she should she didn't really understand what it was and she'd decided to use me as her guinea pig. She figured out very quickly this wasn't for a retired master florist, but I ended up keeping the account and at least built the profile out.  The headshot I used was taken under duress by my former boss like 7 years ago when she insisted on putting pictures in the org chart to help our remote colleagues have faces to go with the emails.

I have connected with some people, but it's not a work-only thing. If I go through my suggested connections list, I have to play a little game with myself and figure out where I know these people from. I can pretty much filter out Rando Calrissian the PR/HR wonk and their ilk, but I still have a lot of options left. Is that a GWJ person, a church person, an Enforcer, a game industry person, or like an actual like professional contact?

Reading through those lists it turns out I have run around potting aliens and zombies online with some really high-powered people. And I guess I better get the homework done on making myself look good up there, too.

So I need to talk to my bosses again and make sure they understand that my network isn't going to look like the rest of them.