I had the most delightful experience in the world of web this week, and by “delightful”, of course I mean harrowing, potentially damaging professionally and crushingly embarrassing.
Updating my LinkedIn profile, with one careless click of a button, I accidentally asked everyone in my contact book to be a connection of mine.
Everyone. No filters applied, no – “hey, we parted on less than great terms, better not contact that person again” – sense of reason. Simply, everyone I’ve worked with, sent a press release to, dated, every member of my extended family, everyone I’ve spoken to even just once. Hell, even the customer service desk at my former telco got an invitation.
And apart from the bright red cheeks I’ve been wearing for a week (I’m meant to be able to use a computer, dammit!) there were a couple of interesting outcomes from my online folly.
Firstly, there is a huge turnover of staff within organisation. About 60 per cent of the automated emails were blocked by the company, because the address was no longer valid. It could mean my address book was a little out-of-date, after all I’ve worked in this industry for 12 years and you do collect a few email addresses, or it could be a sign of the times. Staff churn is on the rise.
Secondly, people don’t like being harassed to join LinkedIn. I thought it was fairly simple – if you didn’t want to join, click on the “ignore” link on the email. But apparently LinkedIn emails people every day asking them to join up, once you’ve inadvertently provided their email address. That wasn’t in the glossy advertising, I can assure you.
As I madly went through the list of sent invitations, withdrawing them one-by-one, I felt very sad about seeing the names of people I’d lost touch with, for one reason or another.
The ex-boyfriends dumped and forgotten about. The colleagues from politics who had lost their jobs when their boss had lost office (in either an election, a travel rort or a gay porn scandal, take your pick). The journos who had left their posts for greener, more lucrative pastures.
Spamming a couple of hundred people is an experience I’d rather not repeat, but this is what happens in the days when the little black book has gone digital.
