It's all about capital

(photo credit:http://www.makeuseof.com)

From the moment we’re born we have the Idea of working drilled into us. Regardless of whether the type of work we aspire to or are told to aspire to is ''professional' we continually hear something similar to ''go to school and get a good job''. Going to University and getting a professional job will often mean entering the ‘Professional world’ which for many will mean navigating networks of people many of whom will wield some sort of power in their field. Whether that power originates from their position, their honours or their connections, they have it. In our day to day lives the idea of people, groups or networks possessing and displaying power has become a normal and ordinary occurrence that unless prompted we put little thought into (Allen 2003, pp. 2-6). The general idea around people and power is that there are those who have it and those who don’t or at least those who have a lot and those who have less (Kuttainen, 2017). Although this power can also be transferred, this idea of power transference will come up further in the blog.

Now with the emergence of the internet and online social networks the way people work, look for work and interact with work networks has changed more in the past decade than in the previous century. One large professional social network is LinkedIn. Although I’ve had some experience in professional worlds I’ve never had any need to use anything like it, though I do know many people who use it for fields like finance, business and public relations. Data released by LinkedIn shows that the top three professions that use LinkedIn are Information Technology, Marketing/Advertising and Human Resources.

When you first sign up to LinkedIn you’re prompted to fill in certain parts that you’re told will enhance the efficacy and in a way the 'power' of your account to attract attention from employers and other people in the network. One of these sections allows you to put down skills and experiences (professional capital or power). In itself the fact that you list something is given no inherent value in the network, until another feature of the site is utilised. This feature being that other people who use LinkedIn and are connected to your network can verify that you do in fact have this ‘power’ that you claim to posses. The intention of this is also to show who verifies your 'capital' so that others can see who they are and see what ‘power’ or 'capital' they have, the idea being that the more professional legitimacy the verifier has the more legitimacy you have.

Essentially on one level the network works off the idea of people transferring power from person to person within the network. As I continue to use it and the more people I connect to my network the more legitimacy my own profile will gain and therefore the more 'capital' and 'power' I will appear to have along with any honour or awards I gain outside of the network.

Allen, J. (2003). Lost Geographies of Power. Malden: Blackwell Publishers

Dye, (2005). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narrative and the Making of Place, week 2 notes [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

LinkedIn, (2016). LinkedIn Industry Rankings: See which industry tops the list!, retrieved https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-industry-rankings-see-which-tops-list-joshua-waldman

Makeofus, (2011). 3 ways to meaningfully visualize your LinkedIn network. Retrieved from http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-meaningfully-visualize-linkedin-network