Poll: Is the security world “LinkedIn”?

I got yet another invitation for LinkedIn this morning. In case you don’t know, this is a professional networking site that’s supposed to help mostly grown-ups keep in touch with professional contacts and make new ones. Every few weeks, someone asks me to join, whether it’s a PR person, source, colleague, college classmate or friend.

Now typically, I just hit delete. I hate stuff like this, which feels something like a chain letter. I’m leery of the kind of information I’d have to give up if I joined, which would then be available to pretty much anyone (at least in a seven-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon kind of way). Also, I have to confess that I’m afraid of signing up and not having any or many links. Then I’d have to either be a LinkedIn Loser, standing alone in the corner at the high-school dance, or resort to my own cheery chain-mail solicitation to everyone in my inbox: “Invitation to connect!”

So what’s different this time? Well, I won’t name any names, but this particular invitation comes from one of the country’s preeminent CSOs, someone for whom I have a lot of respect, and who maintains that he has been using LinkedIn to “establish and maintain contact with friends and members of the global information protection community.” If this is true, then this network contains people who are sources or potential sources that could help me do my job. So maybe this means it’s time to get with the program and just sign up for the darn thing, if for no other reason than to avoid the quandary the next time.

Want to help me decide what to do? Cast your vote about whether I’m likely to find a CSO community at LinkedIn and should take him up on the offer.

-Sarah Scalet