Everybody's performance is now public information

In my opinion, the most fundamental change that LinkedIn introduces is the idea that one's career is no longer a private business. All serious careerists will have to learn how to manage their public personae or reputation.

Indeed, there are only two things that determine most significantly the value of a person's career:

• his professional value
• his market exposure

The LinkedIn profile clearly shows the professional value of a person (assuming he has done a good job of fully and accurately portraying his professional achievements) while his/her number of connections clearly show how connected he/she is in the market.

This means that everybody's career metrics (performance indicators) are now observable, which means you can assess your career competitors, but they can also assess YOU!

(I was fascinated by all the information I could find on my competitors, by searching for people whose title included the words "knowledge management"!).