different worlds

I took another step into the social media world the other day.  I joined LinkedIn.  I can’t say that I did so willingly or enthusiastically. I’ve known about LinkedIn for quite a while but I’ve resisted joining for my own reasons.

The whole thing was precipitated by a serious inquiry that came into our website.  The client wanted to connect through LinkedIn.  Normally other people in the office would deal with this but they were busy so it fell to me and I had to register to begin the conversation.  The first thing that struck me is that I have never had anything to do with LinkedIn and yet I had over 200 connection requests already waiting for me.  What’s more LinkedIn wanted to take a peek into my mail contacts and social contacts to add more people.  I bypassed this option and cropped through the requests taking only the ones that looked familiar and ignoring the rest for now.

Some people might find it odd that I want to keep my professional and social lives apart but to me they have little intersection.  My professional life deals with many technical subjects that my friends and family don’t really know all that much about.  On the work side, the people who I deal with are mainly consummate professionals.   They eat, breathe, and sleep their jobs and don’t really like to share their home life.  In some cases I don’t really know anything about them.

To me social media has always been a more private affair that dealt with my life outside of work.  Something that was for family and friends.  To my peers I am someone who is interested in movies, writing, science fiction, and various other things.  To my co-workers and business contacts I am the guy that provides them reliable service and advice.

The only intersection between the two worlds is me.

So how will this play out in the long run?  My aim is to try to keep these worlds separate as much as possible.  I know that the two sides can be successfully integrated and can even enhance each other in some ways.  But I value my home life and I feel a line has to be drawn between the two.