On being a LION hunter

I've become a LION hunter.

Those of you who are acquainted with the outstanding social networking site LinkedIn may know that a LION is a LinkedIn Open Networker. According to MyLinkWiki, the term is used to "describe someone that is receptive to receiving 'Invitations to Connect' from people they don't know."

LIONs will often connect to anyone who invites them to connect, but according to MyLinkWiki, "by becoming a LinkedIn Lion, you ARE NOT agreeing to CONNECT to everyone, or even anyone, who requests to connect to you. You are only agreeing to RECEIVE LinkedIn Connection Requests from other LinkedIn Lions. That's it. No other obligation." However, in my experience, LIONs have been willing to connect to almost anyone.

I am eager to expand my LinkedIn network (and my Facebook network for that matter), but for some reason, I'm not psychologically ready to become a LION. Instead, I've become a LION hunter--I track down LIONS and then fire off a connection request.

I searched Google a few minutes ago for the terms: LinkedIn "LION hunter", and reviewed the summaries of each of the 72 results. None of them seemed to use the phrase LION hunter in this manner. Did I coin a phrase?

I see myself becoming a LION one day, but for know, I'm content to be a LION hunter. Time to go on safari.

LinkedInABox and other LinkedIn tools

I found an interesting widget that works with LinkedIn. It's called LinkedInABox, and it presents your LinkedIn information in an interesting way. Here's an example:

LinkedIn Profile

Get your LinkedInABox

There's one catch. If you try to create your own Box, one of the questions you will be asked is whether or not your Box is for MySpace. If you are creating a Box for a blog on Blogger, like this blog, you should answer "Yes." The code that was generated when I answered "No" did not work.

You can find other LinkedIn tools on Mashable.com.

LinkedIn

I spent a lot of time updating my LinkedIn profile and network. For those of you who aren't familiar with LinkedIn, it is a feature-rich professional networking site. I've found some of my coworkers and former coworkers on the site, and reconnected with an old friend from college that I haven't seen in twenty years.