NYCPHP Meetup

[Peter Sawczynec]

Offline, someone wrote to me directly and posed the question(s): Why
have more Connections of LinkedIn? Why use a LinkedIn
compared/contrasted to a mailing list?

I thought that my thoughts were actually worth posting here. 

LinkedIn, Jigsaw, HotJobs, Monster, Dice, MySpace, Facebook, yahoo,
google, Adobe, IBM, Oracle... -- evidence of the success and integration
of the [social] networking aspect of using the Internet to get something
done is evident everywhere.

I don’t think that LinkedIn itself, is everyone's answer -- but what
LinkedIn represents on the Internet is important. 

Even if you don't want to ever use LinkedIn yourself, understanding it
more fully (for say dispassionate professional purposes) by taking an
opportunity to precisely examine the tools of LinkedIn and what the
potential benefits and advantages there are to using them robustly is
well worth the time. For example, LinkedIn has embedded within the
structure professional Q&A/advice-style internal mailing lists too.
Also, all communications on LinkedIn can be public or private,
professional or personal (essentially online or offline, so to speak)
without going out of the interface or needing to state that you are
going private or off list, or using multiple email addresses. One,
technically, doesn't even need email addresses. One more just uses the
right tool/technique for the communication job. 

I believe that what LinkedIn is and how LinkedIn works (and how it even
came to be) is closely meshed with the expansion and growth of the
Internet/Web 2.0 way of life and doing business. I would posit that it
is highly probable that in the future more and more groups/associations
will be more like a LinkedIn or [social] networks from the get go. (In
fact, it would seem, that future is already here. First thing college
kids join is Facebook. Then other local specialized [social] networks.)

I would proactively support the aggressive spread of PHP professionals
(individually and formally as a Group) into LinkedIn territory since
yesterday. Many already have. 

Warmest regards, 
 
Peter Sawczynec 
Technology Dir.
Sun-code Interactive
Sun-code.com 
646.316.3678 
ps at sun-code.com