But the light linkers you describe are also working a “quantity over quality threshold,” no?

Luke 11:9 says: “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

If Gene’s wisdom roughly translates to trust in the person, doesn’t Luke’s proverb roughly translate as trust in the process? The door opens not because of who you are but because of what you do [seek, find, knock].

The depth of relationship building that you describe is predicated on exclusivity. It’s who you know and how well you know ‘em, and visa versa. You described it as deep.

Light-linking is about indiscriminate inclusiveness and for a purpose altogether different from leveraging personal connections. Isn’t it about leveraging critical mass?

I can’t imagine that anyone in their right mind systematically builds a 500 plus network on LinkedIn expecting to 499 people to say, “Hey, Ami, it’s you! Sorry I’m a bit light today, will you take nine grand instead, 86 the bun?” any more than I should upset if my howdy-doodies go unanswered.

Somewhere between the Relationship Economy and Network Economy we have LinkedIn. It seems to me that the romantic notion persists that it should somehow reflect the qualities of both. I don’t see how it can.

You say it might be time to re-evaluate LinkedIn, change our networking strategy. I’m afraid the days of LinkedIn being about networking — for the most connected users at least — are long gone. That said, it remains a strategic play which is why we [open networkers] keep banging it.

In struggling to reconcile all of this for myself, my own networking and relationship building, I think the surrealist painter Mimi Parent said it best: “Knock hard, life is deaf.”

Thanks for the post and leading me here.

Having Bob Burg forward my book was amazing. From the question “who should forward this?” (Vincent Wright answered that question for me) to getting a very comprehensive forward, along with suggestions for the rest of the book, really blew me away.

It did happen because of “deep relationships.” And Scott is right, I’d do whatever Bob asks me to.

To be honest, and not to sound sappy, what I saw was the American Dream (happening throughout the world). No bureaucracy, no red tape. It was very much givers gain, relationship stuff that allowed us to get amazing results. Huge thanks to Vincent Wright, and to you, Scott, for facilitating this. And of course, to Bob who proved to some unknown guy (me) that he is a very classy person.

Jason Alba
CEO, author