New Game in Town

Now that my free subscription to the New York Times game, Spelling Bee, has ended, I've been looking for new ways to kill some time and keep my brain sharp, and luckily, the NYT has introduced another free game, along with Wordle.

It's called Connections.

The rules are simple: you are provided with 16 words and you must find four that have something in common, such as how they sound or how they are components of an object, or if they are all words that describe something similar. When you have clicked on these four connected words, you submit your guess.

You are allowed only four attempts to link all four groups of words.

For example, in this puzzle, the words WON, TOO, FOR, and ATE all sound like numbers.

It's a challenging game and can take me much longer than it does to solve Wordle's word of the day, but it takes less time than Spelling Bee took me to find all of the words to get me to Genius level.

I've only been playing it a few times but I'm getting hooked. Fortunately, it's available to play only once each day, like the other NYT games I've played, so it doesn't take up a lot of time.

How about you? Have you played it? What other games do you play? Leave me a comment, below.

Happy Monday!

Not A Ringing Endorsement

Several months ago, I discovered that I am using LinkedIn less and less often, and that I had more connections than I knew what to do with. So I started culling.

I started with people that I didn't recognize as anyone with which I've interacted, or with people whose interests and career paths weren't in line with my own.

The whole purpose was to focus more on the connections that I really knew or have had come conversation with in a discussion group, or one-on-one.

In the ensuing months, I culled about 140 connections.

But then I looked at LinkedIn even less often than I had when I made the decision to cull connections, and I stopped looking to shrink my network.

When a person contacts me and wants to connect, more times than not I decline. Sorry, but until I get my list paired down to a manageable number, I'm not going to take on more connections. Unless I really do know you, I'm not going to connect.

And since I started culling connections, LinkedIn has come up with a new feature: endorsements. Drawing from your list of skills, a connection can click a button and endorse you for that skill. Supposedly, it boosts your ability to be found when someone is searching for people with a desired skill set.

I have endorsed only a small number of people. To receive an endorsement from me, I must know you for that particular skill. This means that I have either worked with you and seen you use that skill in your job or I follow you on your blog or other social-media connection (or I even know you personally), and I have seen evidence of that skill (for example, writing, photography, or Web design).

By endorsing you, I am staking my reputation on you by acknowledging the fact that, yes, I know you for that skill and you are very good at that skill.

If I don't know you or I don't know you for that skill, I won't endorse you for it. I won't put my name behind your claim for that skill.

Some of my LinkedIn connections have started endorsing me, and for that I thank them. Sometimes.

I receive endorsements for my writing, and I assume that those people have read my blog or my novel, and that they like my writing. For that, I am honoured.

Some folks endorse me for my blogging. Again, I assume that these people read my blog and like it. Again, thank you.

But some of my LinkedIn connections, some with whom I have never met, never worked, have started endorsing me for technical writing. Or for FrameMaker.

Only a couple of my technical writing projects have been in the public eye. If you own a copy of WordPerfect 9 and have the user's guide, you own some of my work. But that manual is a collaboration of many writers, and so you would have to know which chapters were written by me.

I doubt any of my LinkedIn connections know which sections are mine. And yet, they endorse me for a skill that they cannot verify.

Same with my FrameMaker skills. Some LinkedIn connections have worked with me and have endorsed me for this dinosaur Adobe product. They have seen me produce documentation, despite the increasing issues I have faced with this buggy program. So to those connections, I say thank you.

But to my connections who have never worked with me, never seen me use FrameMaker, and yet who endorse me for this skill, I have to scratch my head.

I complain about FrameMaker openly, on Twitter, when the app is giving me grief. But I would think that if someone was thinking about my skill set after reading these tweets, he or she might think, "maybe he just doesn't know the program well enough."

I've used FrameMaker for about eight years or so. I know it all too well.

But unless you've worked with me, have seen me in action, producing technical documentation (and, for a while, I was using it when writing chapters of Songsaengnim, before I discovered I was causing myself too much work), you have no idea that I have any expertise in FrameMaker.

And so, if you are a connection of mine on LinkedIn and you have endorsed me for my FrameMaker skills, check again. You'll likely find that we are no longer connections. Because I've dropped you.

An endorsement has to mean something. It has to be given out because you know what you're talking about in presenting anybody with your stamp of approval. It has to say, "yes, I know that you are good at a particular skill, and I'm willing to put my reputation on the line in supporting you for that skill."

If you endorse me for a skill, be prepared to back up that endorsement. Otherwise, you're showing me that you don't know me. At all. But you will be drawing attention to yourself. You will pursuade me to look at our connection.

And I, most likely, will sever it.

LinkedOut

Sometimes, being too connected is too much.

For a couple of years, now, I've had a LinkedIn account and have met some really fabulous people. I've read many, many articles and have joined and started several discussions about writing and photography. It's been great.

To date, I have 632 connections that link me to more than 6.6-million "professionals."

That's a helluva lotta people.

Too many, I think, and not just the 6.6-million LinkedIn people. I mean the 632.

When I connected to the first hundred people, they were mostly friends and people I had worked with at past jobs, and people I currently work with. But then I joined some writers and photographer groups, and I connected with individuals from those groups, mostly those who started interesting discussions or participated in them. When my number of connections was a couple of hundred, I still felt I knew these people (knew them enough to want to converse with them). Many of those folks became my Twitter "friends," and I still follow them.

But after about 300 or so connections, I started losing track of who was who. I would reach out to connect with people who shared group affiliations or who wrote; I would accept invitations with almost anyone who wanted to connect with me. The only time I refused an invitation was when it seemed like we had nothing in common. If someone's profile held grammatical or spelling errors, or looked like little effort was put into it, I declined the invitation. And if the person lacked a photo, I passed (I like putting a face to a professional connection).

I'm now connected to so many people that I don't really have the time to start a rapport, to read any of their posts, or to engage in a discussion.

For a couple of months, I've only used LinkedIn to gain more connections. Sure, I place my blog posts in LinkedIn, but I don't actually go into LinkedIn to do it. As with Facebook, I announce my new blog posts through HootSuite. So LinkedIn is becoming more and more a one-way street.

And that's not fair to people who connect with me. It's really not fair to people with whom I've established an online friendship.

And so, over time, I'm going to start culling my connections. Don't get me wrong: it's nothing personal, it's just that I don't have time to pay attention to all of you. Some of you must go.

I'm going to keep everyone with whom I've interacted. I'm going to keep everyone that I've actually met. But if we've never shared anything beyond a "thanks for following me" message, I'm going to say goodbye. It's not you; it's me.

Because saying that we're connected isn't exactly true. If you've become a follower of my blog because of LinkedIn, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you enjoy reading it, I hope that you continue to do so. But I'm no longer announcing new blog posts through LinkedIn. And, until I get my numbers down, I won't be participating in discussions.

For the next little while, I'm LinkedOut.