From tleeuwenburg at gmail.com Tue Aug 14 03:52:56 2007 From: tleeuwenburg at gmail.com (Tennessee Leeuwenburg) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 11:52:56 +1000 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers Message-ID: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> I've been using LinkedIn to leave positive reviews of some of the best and most professional contributors to The Python Papers. It occurs to me that the same mechanism could apply equally well to other open-source projects. I'm not 100% sure how much value LinkedIn comments would have in a job interview, but my guess is that an increasing amount. Certainly I'd take them seriously if I was employing someone. I'd definitely check out their profile. Also, I wonder if anyone feels like writing some software to calculate a "Guido number" (e.g. Bacon number, Erdos number). It might be kind of cool and fun for people to list their Guide number on their blog / website whatever. Just a thought as a promotional tool. As a result of my post a while back about encouraging Pythoneers to link to eachother on LinkedIn, I have definitely increased my own connectedness. I presume at least some others have done the same (indeed, I know so). I'm not sure how to calculate the "connectedness" of the Python community using this facility, however. If I had the data myself, I could easily calculate the average number of links held by someone in a Python community, or compare the the number of internal links / total community size vs other communities. If anyone here is a LinkedIn Guru, it would be fantastic to hear about whether this is possible. Alternatively, we could pursue our own linking mechanism using OpenID or similar. Cheers, -Tennessee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20070814/f2c53879/attachment.htm From sdeibel at wingware.com Tue Aug 14 16:16:03 2007 From: sdeibel at wingware.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:16:03 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46C1B923.9030701@wingware.com> Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote: > I've been using LinkedIn to leave positive reviews of some of the best > and most professional contributors to The Python Papers. It occurs to me > that the same mechanism could apply equally well to other open-source > projects. I'm not 100% sure how much value LinkedIn comments would have > in a job interview, but my guess is that an increasing amount. Certainly > I'd take them seriously if I was employing someone. I'd definitely check > out their profile. A genuine unsolicited recommendation is certainly worth something. I plan to do more of these myself at some point... although I do wonder how to tell those from mutual back-slapping or those done just so LinkedIn stops calling a profile 90% complete. - Stephan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Tue Aug 14 16:35:18 2007 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:35:18 -0700 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 14, 2007, Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote: > > Also, I wonder if anyone feels like writing some software to calculate > a "Guido number" (e.g. Bacon number, Erdos number). It might be kind > of cool and fun for people to list their Guide number on their blog / > website whatever. Just a thought as a promotional tool. What would be the basis for a Guido number? > As a result of my post a while back about encouraging Pythoneers to > link to eachother on LinkedIn, I have definitely increased my own > connectedness. I presume at least some others have done the same > (indeed, I know so). I'm not sure how to calculate the "connectedness" > of the Python community using this facility, however. If I had the > data myself, I could easily calculate the average number of links > held by someone in a Python community, or compare the the number of > internal links / total community size vs other communities. If anyone > here is a LinkedIn Guru, it would be fantastic to hear about whether > this is possible. Actually, I just this week joined LinkedIn (baaaaaaaa!), and I've been noticing that a lot of people are linking to others at the "acquaintance" level, where my impression was that you were only supposed to link to people when you know them better. What kind of policies are people using to decide whether to link to someone? For example, I probably wouldn't link to you (Tennessee) because I haven't interacted with you much yet. -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "And if that makes me an elitist...I couldn't be happier." --JMS From sdeibel at wingware.com Tue Aug 14 19:18:30 2007 From: sdeibel at wingware.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:18:30 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> Message-ID: <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> Aahz wrote: > Actually, I just this week joined LinkedIn (baaaaaaaa!), and I've been > noticing that a lot of people are linking to others at the "acquaintance" > level, where my impression was that you were only supposed to link to > people when you know them better. What kind of policies are people using > to decide whether to link to someone? I started with just the PSF board members and officers, 'cause it seemed logical and possibly useful. I've received around 15 requests and accepted them, but not actively tried to increase my connections. No one that's asked was someone I didn't know at all, and out of 25 I have only 3 I feel are perhaps questionable -- mainly people that I started to interact with, the connection was made, and then nothing much further happened. I suspect other people have different experiences... - Stephan From tleeuwenburg at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 01:43:11 2007 From: tleeuwenburg at gmail.com (Tennessee Leeuwenburg) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:43:11 +1000 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> Message-ID: <43c8685c0708141643r5d6ff772y2ab6c42b143696d4@mail.gmail.com> I have a two-tiered approach. I personally believe that you can't trust a LinkedIn connection to represent a genuine, quality connection. I am connected to a number of people who I know personally but don't have a strong business relationship with. I don't have a connection with anyone I haven't had a conversation with. In order to "shore up" my better connections, I try to leave feedback. I imagine that while feedback from unknown sources is only somewhat relevant, seeing feedback from someone you know and trust is very important. If I were employing someone that knew Stephan, for example, and I saw a positive review from him, I would most likely trust that review because I trust Stephan. I make new connections on the basis of having some concept about the person I am linking to, but then seek to use the review facility to enhance the trust shown towards particular links. I can also imagine that if I were going for a Python job where the employer knew, say, 5 or 6 of the people in my network, that would reflect well on me. Certainly they could gauge my involvement in the Python world using this heuristic. In a lot of ways, LinkedIn is rather primitive. I would love to be able to assign a weight to my connections to indicate a stronger relationship with some people. This exists to some extent in the ability to describe relationships ( e.g. I managed X, I worked with X etc) As such, I don't see "weak" connections as poisoning the network. Discriminating employers can manually examine potential hires and it doesn't matter too much if someone headhunts someone I'm weakly linked to. Making the comments personal and specific I believe helps to give valuable information about that person. Cheers, -T On 8/15/07, Stephan Deibel wrote: > > Aahz wrote: > > Actually, I just this week joined LinkedIn (baaaaaaaa!), and I've been > > noticing that a lot of people are linking to others at the > "acquaintance" > > level, where my impression was that you were only supposed to link to > > people when you know them better. What kind of policies are people > using > > to decide whether to link to someone? > > I started with just the PSF board members and officers, 'cause it seemed > logical and possibly useful. > > I've received around 15 requests and accepted them, but not actively tried > to increase my connections. No one that's asked was someone I didn't know > at all, and out of 25 I have only 3 I feel are perhaps questionable -- > mainly > people that I started to interact with, the connection was made, and then > nothing much further happened. > > I suspect other people have different experiences... > > - Stephan > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20070815/3eced426/attachment.htm From roy at panix.com Wed Aug 15 03:40:13 2007 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:40:13 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <43c8685c0708141643r5d6ff772y2ab6c42b143696d4@mail.gmail.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> <43c8685c0708141643r5d6ff772y2ab6c42b143696d4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6FD2EEE8-57E7-4043-A548-6B75CAD01C36@panix.com> I look at LinkedIn like a video game. Part of the fun of playing is figuring out the rules. As far as recommendations go, I put more faith in a LinkedIn recommendation than I do in eBay feedback, but not a whole lot more. On Aug 14, 2007, at 7:43 PM, Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote: > In a lot of ways, LinkedIn is rather primitive. I would love to be > able to assign a weight to my connections to indicate a stronger > relationship with some people. This exists to some extent in the > ability to describe relationships ( e.g. I managed X, I worked with > X etc) -- roy at panix.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20070814/778e2d8e/attachment.htm From roy at panix.com Thu Aug 16 05:09:04 2007 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:09:04 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <6FD2EEE8-57E7-4043-A548-6B75CAD01C36@panix.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> <43c8685c0708141643r5d6ff772y2ab6c42b143696d4@mail.gmail.com> <6FD2EEE8-57E7-4043-A548-6B75CAD01C36@panix.com> Message-ID: <3A18076B-57E1-4881-B8E9-C64D7471107C@panix.com> On Aug 14, 2007, at 9:40 PM, Roy Smith wrote: > As far as recommendations go, I put more faith in a LinkedIn > recommendation than I do in eBay feedback, but not a whole lot more. Case in point -- I just got an invitation to join a network from somebody I've never heard of. When I looked at the invite closer, I realized he had sent the invite to a *mailing list* I'm on. -- roy at panix.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20070815/bd9e5313/attachment.htm From jeff at taupro.com Thu Aug 16 07:00:44 2007 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:00:44 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Thought: Using LinkedIn to reward open-source developers In-Reply-To: <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> References: <43c8685c0708131852p7be43fd0j9ee9b9c74d87c4e4@mail.gmail.com> <20070814143518.GA29073@panix.com> <46C1E3E6.9010101@wingware.com> Message-ID: <46C3D9FC.7080601@taupro.com> Stephan Deibel wrote: > Aahz wrote: >> Actually, I just this week joined LinkedIn (baaaaaaaa!), and I've been >> noticing that a lot of people are linking to others at the "acquaintance" >> level, where my impression was that you were only supposed to link to >> people when you know them better. What kind of policies are people using >> to decide whether to link to someone? I link to those with whom I've interacted, and whose backgrounds mesh in some way. "Linking to" someone is different from "recommending" someone, both of which you can do. The latter is when you know them better, in my opinion. Linking just means they're part of an extended professional network. And some people (some in the local business network parties) link to anyone in a game to achieve the max count of linked people. I believe the top two people on linkedin.com overall are from this monthly Dallas business party, but I don't consider that collecting links to strangers really counts. I need to do more recommendations myself, to highlight those people I know are extraordinary. -Jeff