On LinkedIn, expertise, and green fashion.
A while back LinkedIn added a new feature, Answers, in which you can ask questions of your LinkedIn cohorts, receive answers, and rate the results. It’s a formalized type of cocktail party networking – as is the entire site. And, as such, it’s occasionally quite interesting and engaging, but mostly dull and pedestrian.
Right now, for example, the first question listed on my Answers home page is “Rank these sites by popularity in 2010 amongst: Google, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Wikipedia”. Remind me why I give a damn? Oh, right, I don’t. Apparently I’m in the minority, though, since the question was asked only three hours ago and has already accumulated one hundred twenty-six responses. On Sunday afternoon.
Anyway, the asker of a question can classify answers as Good Answers (or not), and can choose one as the Best Answer. And if your answers are chosen as good or best, that qualifies you as an expert in that category.
Back when the Answers feature was new, I spent some time playing around with it. I thought no more of it for quite a while, till I noticed recently that I seem to, in LinkedIn’s words, “have expertise in Freelance and Contracting, Market Research and Definition, and Small Business”. I’ll skip over the not-very-interesting details of most of my answers, but I think that my answer that qualified me as an “expert” in market research and definition is right on enough to be worth repeating here.
Victoria Everman – a fascinating and productive woman – asked:
Should eco-fashion be promoted as voraciously as alternative energy sources and recycling? Do you see the sustainable and ecologically-based fashion world as a key aspect of the reestablished environmental movement; why or why not?
I responded, in part:
Eco-fashion is certainly promising. The environmental has had small impact on the fashion industry, but its reach is growing.
Unfortunately, the fashion industry thrives on rapid turnover, on an insatiable appetite for the newest thing, on a relentless forced and planned obsolescence. That is, of course, deeply un-ecological.
Eylon’s example of the Black Spot is telling. Those sneakers were released, with small fanfare, what? A year ago? Two years ago? Not long ago, for sure—but long enough ago in the fashion world for them to have vanished entirely from stores.
Last season’s products are too old; products that are intended and designed to last are not even part of the game.
NB: If you’re not familiar with the Blackspot Unswoosher, then take a look; you should be.