Crowdsourcing who you are

If you use LinkedIn, you have seen their latest social engagement initiative that prompts you to endorse a skill of someone in your network.  At first, I ignored this but then people started endorsing me, or more specifically started endorsing a specific skill that they perceived I have.

Two weeks into this, it struck me as odd that the people endorsing me were not necessarily those closest to me.  Don’t misinterpret me; I am flattered that those people would endorse me on an unsolicited basis. As you can see from the chart, the biggest cluster of endorsements is gravitating to Professional Services and Strategic Planning, but given that I have over 2200 LinkedIn connections, is approximately twenty  endorsements  a statistically representative view of who I am.

So this raises the question, “Who am I?” and is the perception that I portray to the world reflective of how I perceive myself.

To answer this question, I am proposing an experiment. For the next two weeks, I am asking everyone who reads this blog and is one of my 2238 first degree LinkedIn connections to endorse the skills that you think I have.

 (According to LinkedIn), To endorse a skill already listed on someone’s profile:

1. Scroll down to the Skills & Expertise section of http://ca.linkedin.com/in/smithpeterj
2. Click the name of the skill, or the + symbol next to the skill.

To see a list of suggested skills to endorse a connection for:

1. Move your cursor over the arrow next to Send a message in the top section of a connection’s profile, and choose the Endorse skills & expertise option. A blue box with a list of skills will appear. They may already be listed on their profile.
2. Click X next to any suggestions you wish to remove. You may also type in additional skills.
3. Click Endorse.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll write another blog and let you know what I found out.