I feel like I must be missing something… how did LinkedIn con adults into thinking they needed a bad, incredibly limited version of their children’s social networking sites? Ok, I shouldn’t be so mean, but honestly, I use LinkedIn pretty much exclusively as a contact list. Here are some quotes which epitomize the opinions of nearly every professional I talk to who uses LinkedIn with some frequency,

“Oh, I don’t use it the way they intend it. I just game the system by guessing email addresses.”

or

“I just sort of hack my way into getting it to do what I want.”

or

“It’s how I badger people without looking like I’m actually badgering people.”

I wish I could sit down with their director of product and get, straight from the horses mouth, what the overall purpose is. That is an open interview invitation if anyone from LinkedIn would like to chat, and I’ll post the results here on my blog.

I would just quit, but some aching feeling tells me that I’m just not quite connected enough for it to be useful yet, but my patience is wearing thin. Anyone out there think that they use LinkedIn the way it is intended to be used? Some fanboy want to try to convert me from a passive, occasional, fringe user to a full-on adopter and evangelist?