Helpful Suggestions for LinkedIn

1) Add an algorithm
Sorry, Julie Shaw. When you lived in town we were fast friends and saw one another all the time. But you moved. When I tried to reconnect to you on LinkedIn I learned that there are 212 of you. I'm not sure of the name of the company where you work anymore. I'm not going to sift through hundreds of names to see if you have signed up on LinkedIn. So, unfortunately, you and I are not going to connect on LinkedIn until I see that one of our mutual acquaintances has already done the legwork.

Or, there may be three people with a more distinctive name, but I still can't recognize them. Maybe I know Elois as a writer for Widget Gazette, but he lists his employer as United Media Publishers.

With Elois I may take a chance (if I'm pretty sure he'll recognize my name) and send him a message saying, "Is this the Elois who wrote the fascinating roundup of the widget industry last fall? If so, would you like to network on LinkedIn?"

There is a penalty for being wrong, however. Did you ever click on the

Only invite people you know well and who know you. Find out why.

link? You'll learn that

"recipients can indicate that they don’t know you.
If they do, you’ll be asked to enter an email address with each future invitation."

This is a good thing. If you and I exchanged two emails (or you paid me a sales call) two years ago, and you import all your contacts, but I do not remember you, no, I don't want to link up with you. Thanks anyway. I'm going to indicate that I don't know you and LinkedIn will eventually penalize you.

LinkedIn's privacy policy says

"Any other use of LinkedIn (such as seeking to connect to someone a User does not know or to use LinkedIn as a means of generating revenue through the sale of contacts or information to others) is strictly prohibited and is a violation of this Agreement.....LinkedIn may limit the number of connections you may have to other Users and prohibit you from contacting other Users through use of the Services."

But what if I'm just unlucky, and with all the genuine goodwill in the world I send too many invitations to the wrong people? Will LinkedIn limit the number of my connections? Unfair. I think LinkedIn needs an algorithm based on how common a name is. If there are 800 Barbara Andersons, then my reaching out to the wrong Barbara should count a lot less than if I mistakenly contact, say, Katharine Hadow.

2) Change your default invitation
Also, (I have already suggested this to LinkedIn) their default invitation needs to change. If I invite Patrick to connect, the default message that LinkedIn offers me is "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn."

Apparently not everyone has learned by now that people tune in to WIFM--"What's in it for me?" So now when I send invitations, I change the default text to something more focused on the other person: "Would you like to network on LinkedIn?"

It's the difference between an official telling you, "I need you to fill out this form," which makes me want to respond, "I don't really care what you need," and that same official saying, "Would you please fill out this form?" Same basic message, but focused on the other person.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to write me a recommendation on LinkedIn but you don't know what to say, please let me know. I have some helpful suggestions for you, too.

Oakwood Park Decision Goes to Referendum

New Providence residents are relieved, annoyed or as yet entirely unaware that the borough council has tabled the question of deeding Oakwood Park to Union County. I wish I could say that it would be decided by a referendum in November, but in fact the council has made the referendum non-binding, which means that afterward they can say, "Ha ha! Only kidding! We'll do it our way after all!"

Whose Snow Is It, Anyway?

Here in New Jersey's suburbs, where we get about 50" of precipitation a year, we don't think much about riparian rights. We leave it to people west of the Rockies to rival each other in taking more water out of the Colorado River.

After a large blizzard, though, we do think about who owns the snow. At least I do.

The government clears the snow off the public roadways with large and powerful snow plows. The private citizen, on the other hand, removes snow from his or her driveway and walkways by shovel, blower or plow.

Here's what goes through the mind of the private citizen: "I have just shoveled/blown/plowed my driveway and along comes the public snow plow, depositing an enormous berm at the end of my driveway. Phooey!

"Also, removing snow from my car and driveway is a lot of work. If I remove it from my car, it falls in my driveway, where I have to remove it again. On the other hand, if I leave it atop my car I can drive out into the public roadway. Then it blows off and the next snow plow pushes it into a ditch, or makes a berm at someone else's driveway. That is so much easier. Besides, I can't reach the top of my SUV to push off the snow anyway."

The state of New Jersey is two steps ahead of that average driver, outlawing driving around with a snow cover on the vehicle. Clearly, this is a safety measure to prevent sheets of ice from flying off flatbed trucks and breaking someone's windshield. But the net effect is that the government is telling people to keep snow on their private property, not on the public roads.

When the government then pushes more (public roadway) snow onto (private) driveways, you can see how the citizenry might be irritated. Citizenry with clout fight back by engaging snow plows. The plows shove the snow out of the private driveways and into the public roadways, neatly destroying berms and making the private snow the responsibility of the public plows.

The rest of us sigh and throw our backs out.

If you're thinking that the answer is to close up your house and fly to Arizona for the winter and fret about how to supplement your 11" of annual rainfall with water from the Colorado, check your insurance policy. Does it require you to plow your driveway, even if you're not there, in case emergency vehicles need to get to your house? Gotcha.

Finally, aren't sidewalks a good example of the tension between public and private snow?

Once I had a blind roommate. I know how vital clear walkways are to independent living.

And many times I have been the muscle behind the snow shovel. I know I would rather remain inside on a snowy day than trudge outside and clear a pathway for other people's benefit.

Shoveling my driveway benefits me, in that it allows me to move my car. Shoveling the sidewalk really doesn't, and yet, if I have one, the government obliges me to clear it--under threat of a fine.

That's part of the protest against adding sidewalks along Woodland Avenue in Summit.

If there were an easy answer, I would include it here. I don't think there is.

Google Wouldn't Do This for Me

Neither would the New York Times

In fact, I'm pretty sure the Star-Ledger doesn't want me to tell you this, but-

My husband brought me a sausage recipe from the newspaper. "Gee," he said, "this looks tasty." Not only that, it would use up some of that cabbage in the refrigerator.

I wrote down the missing ingredients on the shopping list and clipped the recipe. Several days later, when I had all the ingredients, I looked for the recipe but could not find it anywhere.

"No problem!" I said. "I'll find it on their website." I'm a pretty good Googler, but I never did find it. I had to improvise, throwing ingredients in the pan and crossing my fingers. Naturally, I wrote a peevish email to the Star-Ledger, saying that I expected their website to mirror and archive their print content.

I had a very kind email back. Someone named Kim offered to US mail me the only sausage recipes that the Star Ledger had printed within the last month. I felt bad putting her to that trouble; all I had wanted was to express my annoyance. She insisted that she had already pulled the section and the envelope was right in front of her.

The envelope arrived today. "Kim" turned out to be Kimberly Jackson, the Lifestyle editor. And to my delight, it was the right recipe. I'm looking forward to trying it, right after I go shopping again.

Thanks, Ms. Jackson. Thanks, Star Ledger. I'm glad I'm a print subscriber.