Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Does anyone else use LinkedIn.com?  I joined a few years ago, but have found it newly compelling reading because of the livefeed of tweets and status updates.  I'm not aware of any of my friends who have found a job this way, but it is lovely to have all of your information in one place.

I downloaded an app that lets me post all of the articles about a project I coordinated for the holidays as well as some of the exceptional guest blog posts. I also like the recommendation/referral options.  To my surprise, I get the most feedback as editor of this blog rather than my day jobs.  To be fair, in some cases, there's overlap so I guess people feel more comfortable defaulting to the blog. 

I used to bury the blog in the Accomplishments section of my resume. I like to put it out there in the interest of full disclosure since I have a bit of reputation as a result of blogging.  But on LinkedIn, I list it as a job and have a robust description of my accomplishments.  Now I'm at the point that if I was job hunting, I'd want to leverage my blog accomplishments along with other accomplishments.  Advocacy is a skill which overlaps both my professional life and my blogging self. 

I'm not aware that I've lost any contacts and I gain new ones at a moderate, but consistent pace.  There's no sense pretending that I am not a blogger.  I'd have to disclose it at some point so I might as well try to leverage it up front if necessary. 

The networking disclosure question comes up often.  If I'm at a work related event, I rarely discuss it except in broad terms.  I think that's appropriate.  What's more challenging is when I'm at a “personal life” networking event and both come up.  It takes some finesse to maintain the boundary, yet network effectively.  For example, someone might ba a good interview, but also a good work collaborator. I opt for work because I feel an obligation to the people we serve to do my best for their welfare. 

I'm rarely in situations where I can's comfortably disclose being gay.  Typically, it comes up in a personal context such as “Yes, I tried that restaurant last week with Ledcat.  We loved it.”  The two girlie name “us” is the cue and I can tell in minutes if there will be another conversation.

So here's my profile http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=334304&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro   Ask me to join your network. If you dare …. LOL.