Finally, some activity on LinkedIn

Actually, it’s good to learn that millions of LinkedIn passwords have been stolen by Russian hacker and leaked online. As far as I know, that’s the first time anyone has had anything to do with my LinkedIn profile since I posted it more than a year ago. Also, if they’re posting the passwords online, maybe I’ll finally get a reminder of what the hell mine was.

As with all social media, I’ve never been quite sure about LinkedIn. On the one hand, it does provide a great opportunity to exaggerate my importance at the various places I’ve worked. On the other, it appears my lies and half-truths are not being seen by any potential employers. Or anybody else except those tricksters in Moscow. Meanwhile, I keep getting e-mail from LinkedIn recommending connections with people I’ve not met, in fields for which I’m uniquely unsuited.

If there’s one thing I learned from Facebook, it’s that online connections to people you wouldn’t recognize in a supermarket are unlikely to result in anything good. Particularly a job. It’s always just about harvesting and monetizing whatever information people are vain enough to share. In that sense, LinkedIn is lot like the Russian hackers now chortling over our painfully obvious passwords. And I can’t believe I just used the word “monetizing.”