#8 NOT Taking LinkedIn seriously.
LinkedIn v/s Website+AngeList+Forums, Writing Online & Learning by Feedback.
Hey, Hunter-Gatherer!
With COVID-19, all of a sudden companies across the world are rapidly shifting to a remote-first way of working. And the number of possible companies that you can apply to will exponentially increase. This creates an environment where employess can pass freely from company to company every year or two. Now, you might think this may be detrimental to companies, but on the contrary, this is the very thing that made Silicon Valley. As Writer & Shopify engineer, Alex Danco explains:
"When employees pass freely from company to company, they bring process knowledge along with them. This levels up everyone’s game: excellence inspires excellence. Engineers were free to be more loyal to their craft than even to their employers." (Craft is Culture)
Did you read that last line? The focus of the modern worker shifts mostly to their craft, instead of climbing a company ladder. The priority will now be finding communities & be working with people who appreciate your craft. This is where the best work will happen.
Let's discuss how you can represent yourself & your craft to the world.
Try this
It is perhaps the time to move beyond LinkedIn. A personal website, AngeList, Twitter & online forums can work better at giving you the culture to practice your craft.
There are 3 main components of LinkedIn:
Listing of Employers & Employees
AngeList's 3 products: Talent, Venture & Product Hunt, create an eco-system of employers, employees, investors & a product launch platform that incentivizes every player in the market to register. As I understand it, AngeList seems to have the best chances of creating the most comprehensive global listing of companies to work in, people to work with and products to work on.
On another note, the questions one comes across while creating an employee profile on AngeList are really fun & thought-provoking. At the very least, I totally recommend you to check it out, if you haven't.
Resumé (LinkedIn Profile)
There's only so much you can share about yourself on a LinkedIn or an AngeList profile. You're not just the skill you have, but also the ideas you think. Here a personalized website is a great way to showcase your ideas, your entire body of work, how you communicate & can hence collaborate, what you're interested in and work on even when nobody asked you to or paid you for. It is your online home.
The founder of AngeList, Naval Ravikant, wants to hire people by seeing what they work on the side out of sheer interest and a love for the craft. I created my website to essentially share these side “tinkerings”. Using the services available today, you can probably create one in about an hour or two. Learn the ethos Naval is trying to communicate here: Why Naval Ravikant Hires Artists
Another outlet to share your ideas is Twitter. Naval goes as far to say this,
Twitter is a much better resumé than LinkedIn.
(Original Tweet & Discussion)
Content & Conversations
Tweet remains the simplest way to share your ideas & epiphanies. Everybody can tweet. One doesn't sign up to Twitter for purely business reasons, they just do. This is what allows Twitter to be the only truly public network of the world represented on the Internet. It's internet's town-square, and you can engage with anyone without first requiring to have a "LinkedIn Connection."
As discussed in earlier letters, Twitter gives you more control upon curating your feed with a feature called "Lists" to group similar people into multiple non-algorithmic feeds. Following some of the tips I shared earlier, on Twitter one can probabilistically come across a better quality of content. I find most of my like-minded people on Twitter. Overall, I consistently find my Twitter feed to be incredibly rich & relevant to me.
Next up is forums and communities all over the internet organized by people to share their craft, fraternize and argue over methods and best practices. "Their craft is their shared culture.", says Alex Danco. He further adds:
"Forums will unbundle LinkedIn, for any job where craft matters."
To sum it up, avail yourself on AngeList. Build a network on Twitter & Forums. Direct people from everywhere to your personal website. The guide from David Perell on being a citizen of the Internet comes in handy.
Think about this
Writing about an industry is the fastest way to learn about it. By writing, they will learn about industry trends and problems, both of which will inform their future business.
- David Perell
David Perell runs a live online course called "Write of Passage" to help you accelerate your career by writing online. Even though it costs upwards of 2,000 dollars, I opted in.
Perell explains:
"The school I want to build helps people start writing, build an online audience, and start a company in their niche. They’ll graduate once they have a profitable business."
Hence, David wants to evolve Write of Passage into a business school. His 10-year vision is an inspiring read and gives some interesting insights into the nature of the Internet.
The Internet rewards you for sharing your learnings by giving you an audience. And you create products for this audience. These, as he explains, are the Audience-first products. The piece also contains the explanation to the following insight from Naval Ravikant:
"The robot armies are here and they've already taken over. They're just packed into data centres to save on cooling and space."
Respond to this
Do you share your work/ideas online? If so, how do you gather feedback on your posts?
Also, I would love to check out your work. Please share the Link! 🎉
You may reply to this E-Mail, or via WhatsApp. I'll compile the responses and share the key insights in the next email.
Regards,
Abhishek
PS. Everywhere on the Internet as abhishek1point0.
PPS. For any thoughts, questions, or criticisms, you may directly reply to this E-Mail.
Check out Previous Letters.
Important Links in this Letter
Craft is Culture by Alex Danco
Becoming a Citizen of the Internet, 10-year vision & Audience-first products by David Perell