Just a few days ago I commented on a very interesting article on LION and open networker from Larry Brauner and this make me think about why I am an Open Networker.

Well I have to say that, at the end, being a Open Networker is a personal matter, it’s a mixed feeling of trying to expand your visibility and willing to get in touch with people from all over the world. Honestly when your network rise over some thousands direct contacts it could be quite hard to find the time to get in touch with all of them, but from time to time you have the chance to read something interesting as for Larry article or get in touch with people that can make your day, just a happy birthday or a congrats, sometimes are just a nice thing to receive.

The overall experience is positive, beside some few black spots.

Nigerian and love Scam

When you open your network you have a lighter control to who is in your network and why, if your network is composed by a few well known contacts you probably do not have troubles, but if your network is made of thousands you hardly know everyone personally. So happen that sometimes you connect or accept connection from someone that is playin dirty.

I’ve recently seen a rise on scams coming form my network. I’m usually not happy to report someone behaviour to linkedin but I have to admit that I did it more than once.

Probably I should pay more attention before accepting a connection request, but honestly I’m in the Open Networking mood and i think that everyone deserve a chance. At the end I could have misjudged a profile, and till I have no hard evidence I feel unfair to ignore a connection request.

Nigerian Scam

Lately I find out that there are several people that are in desperate need to find a trusted partner to move an great sum of money that has been taken form a deceased rich man, or a deceased official form some african or middle east country. Incredibly I am that guy and to further explore the possibility to make me rich just to provide a bank account to deposit this gigantic sum the ask me to proceed talking by email, usually a gmail account of course (isn’t it a strictly private and confident business?).

To be completely honest it happened to me also with some unknown old lady in UK and even with some dormant bank accounts somewhere.

Although I am thrilled to be such a trustable guy to be ask to manage those piles of dollars I wonder how many billion dollars are floating around the world waiting for me.

This is an old Scam, the well known Nigerian scam. The name comes form the very first discovered scams of this kind that were related to a fantomatic nigerian guy deceased with a great sum. There are many variants but at the end the story is always the same, someone contact you because have a great sum to move and need your support.

Please, if it is to good to be true, probably you better pay attention.

Love Scam

If I’m amazingly trustworthy to make people willing to exchange money with me, I recently discovered that I’m also incredibly attractive, handsome and irresistible. There are some ladies that want absolutely to get in touch with me and start a relationship: love does no matter age, color, religion or distance…..

Again I’m amazed that those hot sexy girls are interested in me, but I hardly believe that you can fall in love with a Linkedin Profile :).

Usually those ladies have a sad hard story as a background, lives alone, never married no children, willing to find an honest man. Ask you to be contacted by email to be able to send you pictures and then you discover that they need money for study, rent, documents or, sometimes, are daughter of a deceased rich somebody and need your help to transfer a sum (I already heard this somewhere, don’t I?) .

Old classic love scam, that can be also a variant of the nigerian scam, is made to leverage what guy are usually interested on: beautiful young girls in need of a real man.

I wonder why it does happen here and never when you walk in a mall or walk around your neighborhood, where are you girls?, lol 🙂

Probably it exist also the variant for lady, but again it is a classic scam,nothing new.

Spam Spam Spam

As larry noted in his article spammers collecting info are always a presence, the have been and always will be able to catch you e-mail to put you into a bulk email sending monster environment. You can try using a linkedin tailored email address, just to direct spam there. But at the end do not think, even for a moment, that you’ll be safe from spam…

Linkedin network updates and some communication misunderstanding

Ok I am here in a social network, I’m here as an open networker, and I’m here to communicate. One reason you are in the social networking space is because you have thing to say or to ask.

But this can be, sometime, the reason for some misunderstanding. I’ve been told I use to post too much and because of this I were filling the email of some contact of mine… I’m sorry to bother but I have had to say that probably is not me posting too much, but you not knowing linkedin features.

If you receive on your main email all linkedin notification without any filter you will be probably and understandably overwhelmed by the number of messages. But I cannot be completely accountable if you are not using correctly the platform.

Alas sometimes being an Open Networker, as in my case, means also trying to exchange, share what you find interesting on linkedin. If I enjoy an article or an update I usually like it and share it, and comment if I have something smart to say. this means that I have several updates daily, if you receive an email for every update you’ll probably start hating me, I get it.

The only thing I can say, this case, or you change your linkedin setting or probably we could not be linked. This really happened to me a few time, and there were colleagues with high technical skills, so I hardly believe they were not able to change linkedin setting (although you never know).

Linkedin as any other platform is open to anyone, but not all share the same vision on how using it. So, sadly, it happen that a contact can’t simply be “connectable” because of the different vision of how and what linkedin is for.

Late answers, sorry I’ve been overwhelmed

I try to get on linkedin daily, but sometimes i simply have hard time and cannot stay updated. Messages are the worst part, may be I have no time to answer and I leave it for later, and that later become too much. I apologize, this is more related to my bad behaviour than to linkedin open networking environment itself. It happen i answer too late to a message and I’m truly sorry, but sometimes hectic life and many messages make the equation really hard to manage.

But I like to be here…

Beside the few black spots, anyway, my linkedin experience as an open networker is really positive, it is great to be here, and I have had the chance to exchange ideas, read and learn from really a lot of great people so Thanks to all my fellow networkers, and feel free to add me to your network.

THANKS!