Our professional network is broken. Well - more so incomplete. LinkedIn’s value is primarily in external facing roles - recruiting and some outreach - but not much else.

The perceived value of a LinkedIn connection has also gone to zero. It was driven first by a race to the coveted “500+ Connections” on your profile. LinkedIn did a great job early on to incentivize us to fill out our profiles and start connecting with people. Now an additional connection is meaningless even if something clever is happening with that graph in the background. In the best cases, conversation is quickly converted into email.

It’s deeply ironic that for most, the world’s biggest professional network isn’t used more at work.

There’s an argument that it’s fine - after all LinkedIn was designed from the ground up to be a tool to use your network. Maybe the true value of the network has been fully realized through recruiting and sales. Even though it feels like network abuse more than use, perhaps it is all working as designed, and this is the end game.

It doesn’t feel like this is true. I think there is a need for a space to express your true identity at work - your strengths, what you’re working on, and how best you operate. A profile that is actively used at the workplace and one that moves with you throughout your career.

I think our notion of a “professional network” has a missing dimension, and this may be it.