Thing 6 is all about professional online networks (though we have dealt with them a little already).
The main interest for me in this Thing is LinkedIn. I signed up without ever being fully convinced of how I would use it. My profile is fairly skeleton at present (jobs, degrees, MCLIP) and I probably should add some detail. I have more than few groups – I’ll come back to this.
Over time I have connected with a fair few folk – this seems to go in bursts – both in terms of invitations sent and received. I got into the habit of asking people I connected with what value they were finding in LinkedIn – not a single person ever came up with a good reason to be there.
What I have been interested in is the way that the CILIP on LinkedIn seems to have started to come to life. This seems to be in marked contrast to CILIP Communities. I get regular emails updating me on various discussions in the group and some of these draw many comments. I wonder if the LinkedIn group could supercede the CILIP Communities Forum? It has the advantage of convenience (apart from for IE6 people) and neatly links to peoples rich professional profiles. It would be interesting to see how CILIP could build on this participation.
I wonder also if LinkedIn could support something to officially badge people that are currently Chartered / a Fellow or whatever (particularly if we made recorded CPD a requirement of ongoing Chartered status) . In this way employers checking us out before interview would have that marker of professional commitment. It would also knock out those who use the letters but should no longer do so.
Hi,
I get much more out of the CILIP discussions on LinkedIn than I ever did with CILIP Communities. People just seem to use it more often so it becomes much more dynamic. It’s quite nice to be able to check someone’s profile when they have commented on something too – just to check that they may know what they are talking about! Sarah