Why I Don't Hate LinkedIn Anymore.... And A Little Something I Missed At Home.

Every time I come to a conference I a: meet some really cool people and b: learn something.  Of course, I did meet some cool people, wait you should meet them too.  Here's a few:
@jennylemmons
@jaybaer
@leeodden
@Toddliss
I haven't found the rest on Twitter yet.  Which leads me to my newest brilliant plan that everyone's Twitter handle should hover in the air above their head so I can find them easily.  Someone should get working on that......
Anyway, on my panel yesterday afternoon we were asked what the biggest social media waste of time was in our opinion and I really, really wanted to say LinkedIn because its not very social and I don't ever use it but I didn't think it was going to be appropriate considering all of the LinkedIn love I'd been hearing around OMS over the last day.  So I said Facebook ads, which is pretty wasteful too. 
Someone else said LinkedIn.
After the panel I was standing around talking and LinkedIn came up which, of course, elicited my usual negative response, and you know what?  Right there on the deck of OMS I got schooled in LinkedIn.  I admit it.  I got 3 things that LinkedIn is good for and I can no longer say that the community has NO value.  I stand corrected.  Here they are:
1) Questions.  I had thought that the questions section was all spam and no one ever really got much business there.  Turns out, it's not ALL spam and people that I spoke with last night did in fact get business by answering questions on LinkedIn.
2) Recommendations.  I liked this one.  LinkedIn is the only recommendation area on a site in which the recommended person cannot edit the recommendation.  You have to put it up as is which does make them pretty solid I have to admit. 
3) InMail.  This one is pretty interesting too.  You get to send 10 Inmails per year and no matter how much you pay, you can only send 10 emails to people you don't know on LinkedIn.  If you get someone's "cold call" email, you know they paid for it, and chose you to send one of the precious 10 to so you know you weren't just the recipient of a mass email.  Not so bad.

Don't worry, while I was in San Diego there were things going on in good old Wisconsin.  My sister was at my parent's house when a sheriff car comes rolling up the driveway.  She says the first thing that went through her mind was "oh fuckitty".   Here's what happened:
Sheriff: "There was a report of a black Ford F250 leaving the gas station with the hose still in the tank."
Sister: "License plate XXXXX?"
Sheriff: "yep, that's it."
Sister " Yeah, that's my mom's"
Sheriff: "Well, she drove off  and left the scene"
Sister: "uh.....  ok."
Sheriff: "So,  what's going on around here today?"
Sister: "Sir....  I don't live here, and I don't pretend to know."

I guess she'd driven off with the gas pump still in the car.  She went back to the station long enough to tell the attendant "I have a haircut right now, I need to go" and just left.  So they called the police whom she also informed that she was busy having a haircut and they'd need to talk to her later.....