Your (500+) connections badge in LinkedIn never got you a great job. More likely, it was one specific person in your network who might have referred you into your new role, and the endorsement of a few others who helped cement your claimed skillset and validated your tenure - in addition to your storied resume and skill at interviewing.

But somehow, as we saw in the world of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, the race to claim more connections, with the thought of higher numbers being better, took hold of many of us, as we accepted loose ties, be they connections from colleagues in other departments, partners, vendors, customers, or even non-work friends, as we saw our numbers pass the coveted 500+ maximum LinkedIn would display. After all, it could be thought, if one has 500+ connections, they must be an incredible networker and know everyone.


For those of us who don't regularly change jobs or titles, spending extensive time on LinkedIn is fairly rare. It's a "set it and forget it" model, keeping one's work history intact, and one's network stable. But as one stays in a role longer, and ties to old companies and roles become less relevant, it makes sense to periodically prune one's connections, with a mentality that "connection implies endorsement." Rather than connecting to all previous colleagues, but only supporting a few, why not use the LinkedIn network to be a showcase of the very best you know and can stand by if future opportunities arise for them, or for you?

A few weeks ago, I set out to tackle my long-ignored but often abused LinkedIn message box. I was faced with thousands of requests to connect from complete strangers, from freelancers and consultants to SEO specialists, with the occasional high quality individual thrown in for variety's sake. As I dutifully hit "Report as Spam" time and again, while watching the Oakland A's beat whatever team they were playing on TV, the big mess of invites and connections started to become more clear and a new pattern arose - turning my tired profile and network into something useful for me and others.


It wasn't just enough to deny the random people from getting into my non-open network. It was just as important to raise the bar on who was already on my list. The vendor I once used nine years ago, and actually liked, didn't make the cut. The sales rep in the industry I haven't been in for five years who has since worked for three different companies got the axe. The office manager who I gave all my CDs to when I ditched physical media and went all digital had to go. All nice people. All totally irrelevant now - and likely, insofar as LinkedIn is concerned, never to be relevant again.


It has been more than ten years since I first joined LinkedIn, having been invited in May of 2003, and snagging a four digit user number back when that mattered. Over that time, I've been promoted, laid off, started a new company, been referred to a new one and transferred roles. Each time, it made sense to revisit my business profile and give it a reboot. We could all show the world we know tons of people. I could scrape my Twitter followers, my Google+ connections, and race up the chart. But it wouldn't make sense any more. Take the time to give your LinkedIn a scrub and make the data useful. If we're not connected, and you think we should be, and I won't flag you as spam, go ahead and give it a try here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/louisgray

Standard Disclosure: Google is where I work. We have a social network called Google+. This post is not Google's idea and the words are mine. No bias, real or assumed, is intended.

I often think of that, especially as I’ve reduced pace here... what would my last blog post say? How will I know that I’m done? What will be the reason I would possibly walk away from thousands of posts in the archives? Could I really close down my Twitter account, or delete my Facebook, or even FriendFeed?

And that goes for offline activity too. In my recent adoption of Fitbit, and regular walks to keep my stepcount high, I think about how long I’ll keep the routine. Will this be the last night I’m walking around the block to get a few thousand steps in, for tomorrow, I’ll be back in front of the television instead, having let my Fitbit power down?

On other occasions, the choice is seemingly made for you. In 2009, I once said I wouldn’t stop using Google Reader every day, even if you paid me $25,000. I guess the joke was on me, of course - for it wasn’t really all that long after I joined Google that yes, Reader was closed, and I’ve turned to Feedly to get all my RSS feeds instead. So outside of my control, one day, my routine of opening Google Reader was no longer there. If Reader had remained, I’d probably be in my same routine, as I always had been, consuming content and sharing it, just like I’ve been doing for about six years.

Meanwhile, the removing of Google Reader, and yes, Google Buzz before that even, meant ranking my social content in my6sense no longer was needed, so I found myself deleting that app from my phone last week, despite our history.

Even when it’s not the company or the service shutting down, it could be a simple measurement of priorities for you against what benefits you’ve seen from the app. For the last few months, I’ve thought about this a lot, as I’ve checked in on Foursquare at places big and small, for the important travels and the mundane.

Startup success takes more than sharp vision and smart code. Early adopters of your product, along with excited press, bloggers and engaged social users spreading the word can mean the difference. In late March, I gained the opportunity to present to Devoxx France, in Paris, and talk about how startups can find these early first users, how to gain a relationship with top press and use all channels possible to get your word out.

Many of the examples are familiar to longtime readers of louisgray.com, highlighting companies launched here, from Feedly, TweetDeck and Toluu, to some of my own favorite products, like FriendFeed, BackType and Google Reader. The video just came online today. Hope you find it useful.

It's been just over a year since I started my experiment with Fitbit, tracking not only my every step daily, but also my weight, learning how I measured up against my peers and against myself. The act of tracking my information, and keeping up with my peers, along with an irrational desire to stay atop virtual leaderboards, led me to lose thirty pounds at peak, and with little dramatic effort, I dropped 7 inches in my waist and have had to rebuy clothes more than once.

But Fitbit hasn't been the only data tracking app I've made part of my life, and I'm looking forward to more, for information truly is power, and as you start to quantify and measure that power, you get results.

If Fitbit is about tracking your activity, how much energy you burn, and how far you get with that effort, it's not too much of a stretch to see Nest's smart thermostat as Fitbit for your home. The attractive Nest dial not only is a small conversation piece in our home, but it has simplified our heating and cooling, letting us manage our home via smartphone and the web, all while getting regular reports on how much we've tasked our utilities.

I purchased our Nest thermostat in March of last year, and that means we've gotten through a full twelve months, giving us enough data to check usage year over year. Even with the usual caveats of weather variations, kids needing more laundry done due to more activities, or anything else, it's clear we routinely have saved anywhere from $40 to $100 a month in electricity and gas with Nest, which means we broke even on our $299 purchase within six months.


That catapults Nest from the "fun gadget" category to the "real benefits" category. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to say that you use less heat when things warm up, like my monthly Nest Energy statement from April reported, but it does take smart science to learn when my family is in the house, and how to cool or heat our home at the right time, so nothing is wasted.

Fitbit and the Nest aren't the only devices that urge you to be better with the delivery of data and smart analysis. Today, I got more excited about a new gadget than I've been in some time, when I stumbled upon the promise of Automatic.com, and their early stage smart driving assistant. The assistant, which you can read more about on their site, sucks down information from your driving behavior, sends it to your phone, and helps you learn how you can change your behavior to save money on gas, and generally be a better driver. It even promises to help diagnose mysterious issues that flare up with everyone's car now and again.

Obviously, living and breathing a world like Google, as I do, we're thinking about data and separating good information from bad all the time. But this isn't a story about Google. It's a story about how smart thinking and critical application of the right information can make your life a better one. You don't need ten posts from me that crow about how Fitbit has made me thinner, but it did. You don't need me to tell you I'm one of the cool kids who has Nest, but I did get one, and I'm very glad I did. In months, after my preorder of the Automatic driving assistant comes through, I bet my driving may change in the same way my walking has - and the same way we don't have our air conditioning and heater constantly blaring.

We're in an interesting time in technology, where we're moving from a counting data for data's sake, and posting it without filters, like the first passes with Last.fm and Foursquare, to a utlity-based model, where the machines and software are getting smarter, teaching us and guiding us to be better. It's really exciting when you think about it - as we move not just from quantitative data, but qualitative data, and present it in such a way that it's not just for the geeks, but for everyone. Bring on more gadgets like this, please.