There IS Such a Thing as a Free Lunch

As someone who likes to mooch off other's kindness, the idea of the business lunch is perfect. The boss takes you out, you eat to your heart's content, you talk about business (which isn't THAT perfect), life (which is even less perfect), etc. After the conversations, and usually pressed for time, your boss whips out his or her plastic and all is well with the universe. Without going into semantics, I would have to say that the best type of business lunch is dim sum. You are constantly barraged by waiters and waitresses who offer you some INCREDIBLY del.icio.us (sorry, I just wanted to put that) food and the best part is, you don't have to pay for it! It's a poor college/intern kid's dream come true.

Saying that, you can then understand the initial horror that I felt when I read the title of the ABC News article, Will the Web Replace the Business Lunch?

Of course, upon reading the article and finding out that the article really talks about the dynamics of interviewing and resume writing I was -- to say the least -- relieved. But, not long after feeling relief, I began to feel a little annoyed... similar to how I felt about the Working Together... When Apart article. What is it with the media and misrepresentation? I know that my last rant was about stating the obvious but I feel like it stems from the same problem that the media is filled with a bunch of baboons (or, to be PC, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees) from the planet Soror.

But I digress, the ABC News article was interesting and it makes me feel relieved (not to the same degree about finding out that business lunches have been spared) to know that I can put my information on a website like LinkedIn and ZeroDegrees and just wait for the fish to start biting. Its like that banking commercial where all those bankers(?) compete with each other to win the love of the cute little suburban family. That makes me feel good, especially since I'm being offered a job instead of a mortgage that I could never hope to pay off. In a lot of ways, sites like LinkedIn minimize the hassle of trying to get your resume out into the "market."

Similarly, the Collaborage article, Fifteen Uses of Professional Profiles within the Enterprise offers a pretty good summation of most the other articles that relate to professional social networking sites. I mean basically, your entire interview is laid out on a webpage for anyone to see. Not only does this reinvent the workaholic's dating game, but this also gives me the luxury of sitting on my butt doing nothing while other people are looking for me. Would I actually do that? ....I think I'll plead the fifth.

I think it is great that there is a growing demand for sites such as LinkedIn and software from developers like Visible Path, (software that allows companies to integrate all the social networks within the organization) featured in Six Degrees of Cooperation, is great because I believe that the more transparency that exists between people will result in more cooperation and productivity.