
How come I can't see my friend's LinkedIn Connections?I've signed up for LinkedIn and had some success getting my colleagues to sign up too, but I'm a bit confused: for most of my links I can see their connections too, but there are a couple of people who obviously have connections but I can't see or browse them. What's that all about and how could I do that if I wanted to keep my connections private? Let me show you how to do that in your LinkedIn settings, then let me explain why I think it's a pretty bad idea... Log in to your LinkedIn account, then scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see a bunch of useful shortcuts, including: ![]() The one you want to select is Name, Location, Privacy. Click on that and you'll see a variety of different settings you can tweak, but let's look at the "Privacy" settings: ![]() The key area is Connections Browse and if you read what LinkedIn says, this setting lets you enable or disable your connections viewing the rest of your connection list (people who aren't connected to you can never view your list regardless of this setting, of course). If you really don't want to publicize your connections list, simply select No in this section and save your changes. Now, is this a smart move given that you're using LinkedIn to be more efficient in your professional networking efforts and leverage both your direct and extended network? I believe not. Indeed, I see this as somewhat akin to going to a party and asking everyone who they know, but just smiling smugly if anyone asks you who you know. It won't take long for people to stop talking with you... But even without that analogy, the key question you need to ask is what you're trying to gain from your efforts on LinkedIn. If you're trying to expand your network, then I think that the old Golden Rule of "do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you" applies here: don't expect to be able to leverage other people's extended networks if you aren't willing to share your own. Having said that, if there is someone in your network who seeks complete privacy, then perhaps they shouldn't be involved with LinkedIn in the first place. Again, going to back to my party analogy, isn't this like saying you want to remain a private person while going to a public gathering? Ya can't have it both ways... Anyway, you'll have to decide for yourself whether this is a setting you want to disable on LinkedIn, but at least now you know how do to so.
Help others find this article at Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Stumble Upon
Categorized:
MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Social Network Help
(Article 6434)
Tagged: linkedin, professional networking Previous: How can I grow my business to the next level? Next: What's HIPAA? Subscribe!
Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. Agreed. Why keep knowledge of a business relationship private in this environment? It defeats the purpose of the system to close off access to your network. But as it is currently, the design of this system leaves quality control and relationship management to be done pre-link, not post. So what about changes in relationships? If it gets weird between you and a person you're linked to, how do you break the link? Best, Kevin, Then, It would be a good idea for LinkedIn administrators to offer another possibility for subscribers to show their own connections only to their connections who also propose their connections. By this way, people wo hide their connections to others will have other people's connections hidden. Pierre Posted by: Pierre Lagrange at September 26, 2007 6:41 AMBeing in sales, my contacts are the life blood of my business. So while it's good to network, and be social. THERE IS NO WAY, i'm just going to openly let people cruise all my connections. If you search for, bill gates... and he's one of my connections, and then ask me to pass info along. I will always do that. But again, people who just go through and say, can you pass to this, person, and that person, oh oh! and that person. Is annoying and a waste of time for me at this point.
Best of Luck to Everyone. Posted by: Josh Darville at October 16, 2008 5:33 AMI have a lot to say, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
|
![]()
Search
Find just the answers you seek from among our 2000+ free tech support articles by using our Lijit search engine.
Help!
Subscribe to
Ask Dave Taylor!
Free Updates!
Sign up and get free weekly updates and special offers on books, seminars, workshops and more.
Articles and Reviews
Auctions and Online Shopping Blogs and RSS Feeds Building Web site traffic Business and Management Cell Phones and Mobile Phones CGI Scripts and Web Site Programming Computer and Internet Basics d) None of the Above HTML and CSS Industry News and Trade Shows Mac OS X Help MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Social Network Help Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engine Optimization Shell Script Programming Sony PSP, MP3 Players, Etc. The Writing Business Unix and Linux Help Video Game Tips and Help Windows Help
Recent Entries
Join the List!
Book Links
|