159. Socioprofessional infrastructure

LinkedIn is basically a socioprofessional infrastructure.

It is much more useful than the Internet, because any dumb computer can connect to the Net whereas you have to be a smart and well-connected (that is, trusted) professional to be able to join LinkedIn and get benefits from it.

Some users are obviously very smart; you can see it from their profile and their past work experiences.

Other users are very well connected; you can see it from the number of connections they have.

Success with LinkedIn requires that you be very smart AND very connected. One without the other just won't cut it.

For example, a smart person who's not well connected, is the case of the person who is "all dressed but has nowhere to go."

The user who's not smart, but is very well connected, is the case of the person who goes everywhere without being noticed by anyone important.

The first step, then, is to make sure you are visibly smart. That is, you must make sure other people can CLEARLY SEE how smart you are.

This requires savvy personal knowledge management, which we'll discuss in a future posting.