Our Relationship With Work and The Facebookification of LinkedIn

I’ve seen many people on LinkedIn complain about how it’s starting to look like Facebook. In many ways, it is, with the sharing of articles (some of which aren’t necessarily about “work”), pictures (some are memes that have nothing to do with work), politics, and even deeply personal stuff. I’ve also heard that people use LinkedIn to “hook up” with people in non-professional settings (if you catch my meaning).

I don’t know about the rest of you, but the lines between my work life and the rest of my life are pretty blurry. Maybe it has something to do with working out of my house, which I’ve done for the last 18 years. Maybe it has to do with the fact I spend a fair amount of time on the road, including some long international flights. Maybe I don’t have a ton of friends outside of those I’ve met through work or other professional networking.

The idea that “work” life and your “personal” life are somehow separate, unconnected things has never really resonated with me. I suspect a lot of technology professionals feel the same way, at least based on how they are using social media of all kinds. Obviously, the folks in charge at LinkedIn must have agreed, and thus added Facebook-like functionality.

It’s one thing for LinkedIn to add Facebook-like functionality to their product. It’s another thing for people to actually use it that way, which they clearly are. It’s simply a sign of the times.

I long since learned that social media, in all its forms, can make or break your professional career. A large part of why Nokia was willing to hire me in 1999 even though I wanted to work remotely was because of my online reputation and the corpus of work I had posted on phoneboy.com.

While I certainly post and share my share of silly, personal, and/or political things, I keep it professional on LinkedIn. This means sharing stuff that is related to my profession, personal development, or dealing with something in relation to work, kind of like this article. It doesn’t mean sharing memes, going off on political rants, or pictures of my kids.

Bottom line: The Facebookification of LinkedIn is simply a reflection of modern life, at least for those of us who use LinkedIn. It’s not entirely a bad thing.