mnicona

I think the biggest twat here is you lad....you obviously don't have any use in the corporate world and probably have a crappy job living in a mobile home!

Get a life!

Aviator

Please read site rules. If you have cannot come up with a constructive argument and have to resort to personal attacks to try and support a weak argument then don't say anything. If you don't agree with a poster or don't like their response, ignore it.

mnicona

Yeah like there were no personal attacks coming my way.....rather than try to spout some rules, read the prior posts and think about that again! Nice to see you being unbiased there!

Aviator

I did. As I said, nothing useful to say, why waste the energy saying it. If you think others are being abusive to you, report it, or just rise above it.

mnicona

I'll rise above your comments then.

Oakvillian

I've read through this thread again, and it seems the only poster making personally insulting remarks at another specific poster has been you. Others have challenged your point of view, or have pointed out that you come across like some business-school-junkie management-speak bullsh!t-bingo generator, but nobody has descended to the level of your insults towards Alan2005. Even he, fond though he is of the "twat" word, has (if you read carefully) used expressions like "it is the sort of thing a corporate twat would say" rather than actually aiming a personal insult.

Since you have declared yourself an expert in the world of social media, I'd have thought you'd understand the niceties of online debate. This is a fairly self-selecting audience: the very fact this is an online forum means that nobody on here is at a loss to differentiate their mousepad from their motherboard, but still there are several posters here who manage to hold down relatively well paid and senior jobs without indulging in membership of LinkedIn and the like. That does not diminish them; nor does your enthusiasm for such sites diminish you.

Learn to see the difference between argument and insult, and it will be interesting to revisit this debate. Until then, however, it's not much fun if one side is playing in the schoolyard.

mnicona

Fair point on Alan2005 (the one who obviously only has twat in his dialogue)....the rest I stand behind. Even though your comments ...Others have challenged your point of view, or have pointed out that you come across like some business-school-junkie management-speak bullsh!t-bingo generator....show that you're all more interested in being popular and liked by siding with each other and missing the whole point of my original debate. If others feel so insecure and want to brand somebody for using tools to improve themselves....then quite frankly the users on BE are worse than I realised. I don't brand people losers for not using sites such as Linked In or Facebook, but instead am saying that they hold there place and slating because you don't have a need makes zero sense to me!

NatsnSid

Surely the original poster who called the users of such media twats should have been warned just as quickly. To me the original comments were a personal attack because a few of us had put our hand up and said we had used it for our benefit - so now we are twats are we?

This forum stinks more and more of double standards! I expect a couple more of you to jump in now and try and belittle me with your "wordsmith" attitudes.

It gets very tiresome - I have spoken to some ex-pats who have ceased to use this site because "there are some right idiots on there who think they know everything and reply in a rude and arrogant fashion".

Surely that is not the opinion we want new readers or any reader to have ....i've used this site for years but do not post as much as I would like because I find some of the long serving members replies so aggravating - its troll like!

I've said my bit - as everyone is entitled to do - but there are ways in which to communicate without taking peoples feet from under them.

I've seen it more and more where innocent posts are turned into a farce by the usual posters and moderators jump in and defend the old timers with just as much sarcasm.

I've wanted to say it for a while and now have - bring on the onslaught as it will only prove my point.

Oakvillian

Missing the whole point of your original debate? I think not. I happen to detest management-speak, and spend far too much of my day un-writing it. I work in marketing for a technology consultancy and my life is beset by poorly phrased jargonese. The word "leverage" is a particular bugbear of mine. Unless you are talking about a debt-financed corporate acquisition, it is almost universally better to say "use." A perfectly good single-syllable word in common usage.

I think the point being made is that LinkedIn, in and of itself, is not a tool to "improve" oneself. You can use it to build a network, if you're in the kind of industry where that is effective and where enough other people are in the network to make it worthwhile. In a world such as yours, where your stock-in-trade is expertise in social media, it obviously makes sense for you to be on LinkedIn as large numbers of your peers and potential clients will also be there. For a lawyer, or an accountant, or an economist, or whatever, it is probably less relevant as a mechanism for building or maintaining a contact book.

As it happens, I have a profile on LinkedIn (I joined around 5 years ago, before moving to Canada). I have found it of very limited use here: most of the incoming requests I get are either from people I already know, or are from people who want something from me (a job, a recommendation, etc). I'd rather pick up the phone to the former; I'd rather the latter picked up the phone to me, and maybe meet for a coffee or a beer. I don't dismiss it, but I don't find it very useful or relevant. I think, if you re-read the posts (even dbd's, bearing in mind his tendency towards hyperbole) you'll find that's all other people have said here.

Except Alan, of course, but he's a twat.

mnicona

Ok, so fine 'leverage' is a bugbear of yours....where as vague, fluffy marketing speak is a bugbear of mine - we can agree to disagree. You guys are the ones who picked up on individual language here, which is totally irrelevant in this discussion. Again, a personal attack....so as it's all just semantics, why discuss it any longer.

Of course Linked In can be used to improve yourself. Building a strong network, learning from others as well as online sideshow presentations, identifying opportunities for improvement against peers....they're all valid reasons of how to improve through using such a tool (but it' not the only tool).

Again, and this is my final point on this as it seems to go over your head and you simply want to write about yourself.....the point of my argument was that it's too quick to dismiss the value of a tool simply because you don't get any obvious value from it. Yes you're totally right (which I've said time and time again) that it's not a site that will benefit all, nor is it a site that replaces traditional methods....but it certainly IS a valid and worthwhile tool for someone to try out. If I didn't use Linked In because I was a hotdog seller, I certainly wouldn't say it was for twats and a waste of time.

I'm confused as to why this point is so hard to actually fathom!!!

Alan2005

That is how you sound. I work for a very large corporate and even the worst offenders here for that kind of crap would be embarrassed by what you've come out with on this thread.

(fwiw, you can insult me all you like, I genuinely won't be offended ... the day I take any of this seriously is the day I stop posting)

Alan2005

But the point you seem to be missing is that the OP asked for opinions on TwatIn and the very nature of this board is that they are going to be subjective. It would defeat the purpose if only people that liked and used the service replied. Why can't you accept this and move on? I am beginning to think you have some connection to this service.

Oakvillian

Hold on a moment... I begin to think your misunderstanding of others' points is deliberate. Where have I said that fluffy marketing speak is appropriate? How have I made a personal attack?
Read what has been said. I don't think anybody has argued that LinkedIn cannot be used as a business tool (I assume this is what you mean by "improve yourself" - although that phrase smacks more of the "self-improvement" shelf in Chapters than anything in the real world). I have yet to see any slideshow or webinar that wasn't more full of guff than substance, though I'm sure they must exist. Perhaps I should have a browse through LinkedIn.
Oh dear. The OP asked for people's opinions of LinkedIn. Some people's opinion is that it is a waste of time; others' opinion is that it is jolly useful. I don't know what you imagine has gone over anyone's head: different opinions have been put forward, some more forcefully than others. Is that not the nature of debate?
I don't think fathoming is the problem. Jings, Alan, dbd and the Aviator don't like LinkedIn. You and NatsnSid do. I'm, frankly, ambivalent. What's to fathom?

mnicona

All of a sudden your view is intelligent is it, you suddenly found new words than twat. Your posts don't interest me anymore.

mnicona

Your last point is fair enough, so we'll agree to leave it there then.