Tag: linkedin

LinkedIn starts Career Advice and Mentorship services

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

As far as visiting Social Media sites is concerned, I have slowly veered off Facebook and Twitter and gravitated towards LinkedIn and Medium. One of the interesting features that I noticed LinkedIn launch, is its Career Advice services. I am attaching a screenshot of what I saw, this was a promoted post that I saw in my feed.

LinkedIn Career Advice

Curious to see where this rabbit hole leads to, I signed up for the service. Interestingly enough, the link led me to a place where I had to sign up as a mentor and choose the areas on which I could help others out.

This seems like a me-too of Clarity.fm and similar other services. What LinkedIn definitely has is the wide professional network (and thus the social credibility of the influencers). It’d be interesting to see how Microsoft and the LinkedIn team build this further.

One of the major problems in corporate India is the lack of coaches available in the middle management tiers. Perhaps, if played properly, LinkedIn can address this huge coaching and leadership gap.

What Women Want

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

LinkedIn had done a survey among career women and came out with this brilliant infographic. It’s encouraging to see these trends … stuff such as around half the women surveyed considered their appearances did not play a major role in their career. Was this questionnaire designed by an MCP sexist? Jokes apart, I really like the fact that a majority of the problems faced by women are pretty much the same as that of men.

What Women Want at Work

So, if the answer to this post is what Men want … well, then every one knows that all offices will have a giant screen TV airing cricket/football, a fridge full of beer and a comfortable sofy at every desk!!

Yes, I am still clueless about what they want :-|

LinkedIn Passwords Leaked

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

Some of you might have read earlier this month about LinkedIn passwords being leaked. I did not think twice about such things dismissing the entire event as a minor leak and thinking that it would not have impacted my account.

Today, sitting there like a shining beacon of I-told-you-so, was a mail from LinkedIn –

We recently became aware that some LinkedIn passwords were compromised and posted on a hacker website. We immediately launched an investigation and we have reason to believe that your password was included in the post.

Imagine that! Finally something that has directly impacted you! Or did they just send a blanket email?

I remember that when I was working in eYantra, something as preposterous as this had happened during the first couple of months of our e-commerce platform deployment. A developer had accidentally reset the password database of users. I was forced to draft an email to be sent to the users to reset their passwords, I still remember the shame with which my face was red. Who at LinkedIn must be feeling like this?

This event, combined with the Blizzard fiasco of case-insensitive passwords brings end-user and customer account security back in the front-line media. A call for Personal Security 101. Rajat Swarup, where art thou?

LIONs are whores

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

Scratch that picture of a feline with cheap make-up and gaudy mane!!

I mean the new style of declaring yourself as a LION (Largest Internet Open Networker) on LinkedIn to say that you are open to connect with one and all. In other words, you are connecting promiscuously – a connection whore.

I am not taking a disparaging view of this, since I have on several occasions done this (for building a strong gaming network on Facebook, for checking the limit of friends you could add on Yahoo Messenger, for adding folks on Orkut left right and center, etc).

It’s just funny to note that when you say LION, it sounds like self-aggrandizing.

I am a LION!!

Instead of just saying (and people don’t do this btw) …

I am a connection whore!

Interesting to see that by a simple change in analogy (whore to LION), people are suddenly willing to declare it on their profiles. Well, for me they are still the same … LIONs are whores!