Rubén Rivero Capriles : linkedin

Two hours for Japan and Venezuela

Rubén — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:54:00 GMT

Through the LinkedIn online professional platform, in Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, North America, Europe, South Africa, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and especially in India I have had the opportunity of establishing interesting contacts for future commercial opportunities. On the contrary, within Japan and Venezuela I observe greater resistance to taking advantage of the enormous globalizing potential of this professional network. It has struck my attention that Japanese users on average count with less contacts than LinkedIn users in other Asian countries. Below are presented the comments proposed by various observers regarding the scant growth of LinkedIn in Venezuela. I will be thankful to Japanese readers for your comments about the similarities and differences between both cases, according to your experiences while using such a network in Japan. I will be thankful to Japanese readers for your comments on your perspectives on how could the LinkedIn network increase professional and cultural relationships between Japan and Venezuela.

"Unfortunately the group that understands the advantages of this professional tool is small. I recently moved to Venezuela and it has been difficult to enroll new local contacts, it only remains to keep on sending invites and waiting. The main problem in my opinion is that a great part of the population that can potentially take advantage of LinkedIn is still clouded with facebook, and it is hard for them to understand the difference. Besides, here the fashion definitely marks the difference." (Carlos Baldo, Consultant at Asesores Balor C.A.)

"I believe that the main reason for LinkedIn's lack of popularity in Venezuela is due to the small amount of local businesses using it for the advertisement of job offers. The average person gains greater utility by signing up at computrabajo.com, empleate.com or another such similar site. This is something that happens everywhere. For example, in Germany Xing is more popular than LinkedIn." (Luis Barragán, Software Developer)

"Here everything is fashion. From facebook they are migrating to twitter. And they are only using bumeran.com, cvfuturo.com , etc. (Gladis Sulbaran, Mechanical and Instrumentation Engineer)

"I completely agree with Gladis." The best way to invite Venezuelans to sign up to LinkedIn is by promoting it through events serving music, beverages and food. Here is the example of Facebook. In Venezuela, parties and reunions are organized to celebrate that so many people have enrolled." Luis Meneses (Logistics and Supply Chain Professional)

"I agree with Luis Barragán. The major incentive for entering LinkedIn is the job search, and here in Venezuela there are not many job offers. The main Venezuelan linkedIn groups present very few job offers. Many Venezuelans enter LinkedIn to look for employment opportunities in countries such as USA or Canada where there are job offers available through the platform." Alvaro Fernandez (Recent MBA Grad)

"I would recommend you to enter into Twitter and invite people to LinkedIn from there. Twitter is quite active and many twitters are proactive. Regarding job offers within Venezuela, LinkedIn is not a source. If the network is not proactive it does not function. It is like the first person who used a fax. What to do? The threshold or critical mass most be exceeded." José Alvarez Cornett (Business Manager at Fugro-Jason)

"The LinkedIn groups are exclusively professional, for business and work related issues. The Venezuelan groups are extensively used for political issues, for calls against the government of Venezuela, which falls beyond the context for which LinkedIn was created. This is not facebook. Many Venezuelans, including myself, hate such topics, there are other opinion groups for discussing politics. That is the reality why many Venezuelans do not associate to Venezuelan LinkedIn groups, unfortunately." (Miguel Celi, Senior Technical DBA on DB2/Oracle and SQL Server at SPHERION CORP.)

"I am a Venezuelan LinkedIn user and I have profited and I continue profitting from it. I have asked and responded professional questions. I have rejected job offers and I have help within my capabilities. Rubén, it is true what you say, because the same happens to me. My particular opinion is that our idiosyncrasy particularly pushes us toward belonging to leisure, party and reunion groups rather than to groups whose intention is 100% professional. Many people sign up, but once they notice they cannot find such things, they simply abandon. You must also take into account that most professionals with clear professional development objectives, unfortunately look beyond our borders for a viable scenario to fulfill them. How many professionals, completely freed from political tints do develop, optimize, consult, seek to improve or simply exchange professional experiences among them within Venezuela? If you consider LinkedIn as a product you will notice that, by disgrace, there is no market in Venezuela. I have many contacts on LinkedIn who are Venezuelan but pursue their carreers away from my marvelous country. I wish things were otherwise." (Francisco Población Rial, Sales Manager Spain & Portugal at HYFRA Industriekühlanlagen GmbH)

"Hi Rubén, thank you for initiating this discussion. I represent a Canadian consulting company and I would like all of you to recommend me, according to your experiences, which is the best way to reach the entrepreneurial executive target in Venezuela." (Giuseppina Russo. EMBA, BBA, North American Corporate Financial Group)

"Facing the Venezuelan and global crises one of the best ways to confront the challenges is to project ourselves and the businesses we represent both in Venezuela and into other markets in order to maximize business opportunities. Our historical limitation to the Venezuelan market has always been a mistake. I see current opportunities in Central America, the Caribbean islands and also in Brazil due to the future events that will develop there. Not in vain Brazil is today the world's greatest consumer of cement per capita. This equals Panama regarding opportunities, the latter is today's choice destination for our countrymen. Why not here? Due to a lack of faith? Risks must be taken. We must endeavor and study the opportunities. Regarding the creation of worktables in Caracas to get ourselves to know each other, and then to support each other and to create alliances and/or business ventures is a fantastic idea and please count on me. By being united businesses can be affronted in Venezuela and our natural markets, which I repeat are Central America, the Caribbean and Brazil. Venezuela possesses great human capital, excellent businesses and corporate know-how. We overcome gigantic adversities (the Cadivi exchange control regime, an inflationary and speculative economy, economic contraction, etc.) We are relatively new in this kind of innovative tools available at international markets, and to conquer new clients is not easy. Constancy and discipline. Success, my friends, whoever wishes frivolity may have it, but we want business and go after it." (Andres E. Reveron B., CFO at Concretos Premezclados del Caribe, CPC)

"I agree with Andrés, during moments of crisis it is said that great opportunities arise. I think it is important to create worktables in Caracas to get started, establishing clear objectives regarding what we wish to achieve through them. I am a new user of this web tool, and consider it can result of great utility. Regarding the option of an increased following for LinkedIn in Venezuela I share the idea of using the help of twitter." (Angel Toledo Jimenez, Systems Engineer)

"I recently noticed that LinkedIn and Twitter got associated, perhaps this will provide the push needed by LinkedIn in Venezuela. When placing the hashtag #in on any of your tweets you will update your LinkedIn status. It is similar to the selective twitter status, a quite famous application from facebook (its hashtag is #fb). (Alvaro Fernandez, Recent MBA Grad)

"I believe that the current situation is matter of time. The few companies maintaining a serious Human Resources Department will get involved to LinkedIn as well as the professional groups. It seems to me an excellent tool, we just have to work it out in a local way, which is the hard part." (Oswaldo Bello, IT Manager, Sr IT Infrastructure Consultant, Network and Server Admininstrator)

On behalf of rroopstr global blog, I thank friends from Japan and Venezuela for providing me the opportunity to compile and expand this anthology.

Rubén Rivero Capriles

http://www.riverocooper.com

http://www.rroopstr.com

http://www.escinetv.org.ve

Caracas, 6 de diciembre de 2009

Dos horas para el Japón y Venezuela

Rubén — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:17:00 GMT

A través de la plataforma profesional en línea LinkedIn, en Colombia, Brasil, Argentina, Norteamérica, Europa, Sudáfrica, Nigeria, Arabia Saudita, los Emiratos Árabes Unidos y especialmente en la India he tenido la oportunidad de establecer interesantes contactos para futuras oportunidades comerciales. Por el contrario en Japón y Venezuela observo mayor resistencia a aprovechar el enorme potencial globalizador de esta red profesional. Me llama la atención que los usuarios del Japón cuentan con menos contactos en promedio que los usuarios linkedIn de otros países asiáticos. Abajo presento los comentarios propuestos por diversos observadores respecto al escaso crecimiento de LinkedIn en Venezuela. Agradezco a los lectores japoneses sus futuros comentarios acerca de las similitudes y diferencias entre ambos casos según sus experiencias de uso de esta red en el Japón, y agradezco a los lectores japoneses comentar sus perspectivas de cómo pudiera la red linkedIn incrementar los vínculos profesionales y culturales entre el Japón y Venezuela.

"Desafortunadamente es pequeño el grupo que entiende la ventaja de esta herramienta, yo recientemente me mudé a Venezuela y ha sido difícil ingresar nuevos contactos locales, solo queda seguir enviando invitaciones y esperar, creo que el principal problema radica en que una gran parte de población que potencialmente puede sacarle provecho a linkedin está nublada con facebook, y les cuesta entender la diferencia, además aquí definitivamente las modas marcan la diferencia." Carlos Baldo, Consultant at Asesores Balor C.A.

"Creo que la razón principal por la cual linkedIn no tiene popularidad en Venezuela es por la poca cantidad de empresas locales que lo utilizan para publicar ofertas de trabajo. Para una persona promedio tiene más utilidad registrarse en computrabajo.com, empleate.com o algún otro sitio similar. Esto es algo que sucede en todos lados, en Alemania es mas popular Xing que LinkedIn por ejemplo." Luis Barragán, Software Developer

"Aquí todo es la moda. De facebook se están pasando a twitter. Y sólo estan usando bumeran, cvfuturo, etc." Gladis Sulbaran, Mechanical and Instrumentation Engineer.

"Totalmente de acuerdo con Gladis. La mejor forma de invitar a los venezolanos a registrarse a Linkedin es promocionarlo a traves de eventos con musica, bebidas y comida. Ahí tienes el ejemplo de Facebook, donde ves que en Venezuela hacen fiestas y reuniones para celebrar que tantas personas se han registrado." Luis Meneses, Logistics and Supply Chain Professional

"Estoy de acuerdo con Luis Barragan, el mayor incentivo de entrar a linkedIn es la busqueda de empleo, y aquí en venezuela no hay muchas ofertas. Los proncipales grupos venezolanos en LinkedIn presentan muy pocas oferta de trabajo. Muchos venezolanos entramos aquí para buscar oportunidades en aquellos países donde sí hay ofertas por linkedIn tales como USA o Canada." Alvaro Fernandez, Recent MBA Grad

"Yo recomendaria que ustedes entren en Twitter y desde allí inviten a la gente a LinkedIn. Twitter es muy activo y muchos tuiteros son proactivos. Respecto a lo de ofertas de trabajo para Venezuela LinkedIn no es una fuente. Si la red no es dinámica no funciona. Es como la primera persona que tuvo un fax. ¿Qué hacer? Hay que sobrepasar el threshold o masa crítica." José Alvarez Cornett, Business Manager at Fugro-Jason

"Los grupos linkedIn son exclusivamente profesionales, para asuntos de negocios y trabajo. Los grupos Venezolanos se utilizan mucho para asuntos políticos, llamadas en contra del gobierno de Venezuela, lo cual se sale del contexto para el cual LinkedIn fue creado. Esto no es facebook. Muchos Venezolanos como yo, odian estos temas, para eso hay otros grupos de opiniones. Esta es la realidad, del por qué muchos venezolanos no se asocian a grupos venezolanos en linkedIn, lamentablemente." Miguel Celi, Senior Technical DBA on DB2/Oracle and SQL Server at SPHERION CORP.

"Soy un usuario venezolano de LinkedIn y le he sacado y le saco provecho. He preguntado y he respondido temas profesionales. He rechazado ofertas de trabajo y he ayudado cuando ha estado a mi alcance. Rubén, es cierto lo que dices, porque me pasa lo mismo. Mi opinión particular es que nuestra idiosincrasia nos empuja más a pertenecer a grupos de ocio, rumba y reencuentros que a pertenecer a grupos cuya intención sea 100% profesional. Mucha gente se inscribe, pero al ver que no consigue estás cosas, simplemente abandona. También debes tomar en cuenta que la mayoría de los profesionales con objetivos claros de desarrollo profesional, lamentablemente ven afuera de nuestras fronteras el único escenario viable para hacerlo. ¿Cuántos profesionales, realmente libres de tinte político en Venezuela desarrollan, optimizan, consultan, quieren mejorar o simplemente intercambiar experiencias profesionales entre ellos en Venezuela? Si ves el linkedIn como un producto verás que, por desgracia, no hay mercado en Venezuela. Tengo muchos contactos en LikedIn que son venezolanos pero ejercen fuera de mi maravilloso pais. Quisiera que las cosas fueran de otra manera." Francisco Población Rial, Sales Manager Spain & Portugal at HYFRA Industriekühlanlagen GmbH

"Hola Rubén, gracias por iniciar esta discusión. Represento a una empresa de consultoria canadiense y queria pedirles me recomendaran, segun su experiencia, cual es la mejor forma de llegar al target empresarial-ejecutivo en Venezuela." Giuseppina Russo. EMBA, BBA, North American Corporate Financial Group

"Frente a la crisis en Venezuela y global una de las mejores maneras de afrontarla es proyectar a nosotros o a la empresa que representamos en Venezuela y a otros mercados para maximizar las oportunidades de negocio. El limitarse al mercado venezolano siempre ha sido un error, hoy por hoy veo oportunidades en Centroamérica, las islas del Caribe y ha de ser así en Brasil con todos los eventos que ahí sucederán, no en vano hoy por hoy Brasil es el mayor consumidor de cemento per capita, eso lo iguala en oportunidades a Panamá destino hoy preferido por nuestros coterraneos. ¿Y por qué no aquí? ¿por qué la falta de fe? Hay que arriesgarse. Hay que esforzarse y estudiar las oportunidades. En cuanto a crear mesas de trabajo en Caracas para conocernos, para luego apoyarnos y crear alianzas y/o ventures de negocios es una idea fantástica y cuenten conmigo, estando unidos se pueden afrontar negocios en Venezuela y en los mercados naturales nuestros que repito son Centroamérica, el Caribe y Brasil. Venezuela posee gran capital humano, excelentes empresas y know how de negocios y empresas, venciendo inclusive adversidades gigantes (El control cambiario a través de Cadivi, economía inflacionaria y especulativa, retracción economica, etc). Somos relativamente nuevos en este tipo de herramientas nuevas en el mercado internacional y conquistar nuevos clientes no es fácil. Constacia y Disciplina. Éxito mis amigos, quien quiera frivolidades que las tenga, nosotros queremos negocios y vamos tras ello." Andres E. Reveron B., CFO at Concretos Premezclados del Caribe, CPC

"Estoy de acuerdo con Andrés, en los momentos de crisis dicen que es donde salen las grandes oportunidades, pienso que es importante realmente que se puedan crear mesas de trabajo en Caracas para iniciar, creando objetivos claros con respecto a lo que se quiere lograr con ellas. Soy un nuevo usuario de esta herramienta web, considero que puede ser de mucha utilidad. Con respecto a la opciones de que LinkedIn en Venezuela tenga más seguidores comparto la idea del twitter." Angel Toledo Jimenez, Ingeniero en Computación

"Recien vi que LinkedIn y Twitter se asociaron, quizás esto le dé el empuje que le falta a LinkedIn aquí en Venezuela. Al colocar el hashtag #in en cualquiera de tus Tweets, actualizarás tu estado en LinkedIn. Es algo parecido al selective twitter status, una aplicación muy famosa en facebook (su hashtag es #fb). ( Alvaro Fernandez, Recent MBA Graduate)

"Yo pienso que es cuestión de tiempo... la situación actual, para que las pocas empresas que mantienen un departamento de Recursos Humanos serio se incorporara a Linkedin al igual que los grupos profesionales, me parece una excelente herramienta, sólo hay que trabajarla de forma local...esa es la parte difícil. Oswaldo Bello, IT Manager, Sr IT Infrastructure Consultant, Network and Server Admin

En nombre del blog global rroopstr, agradezco a los amigos del Japón y Venezuela darme la oportunidad de compilar y expandir esta antología.

Rubén Rivero Capriles

http://www.riverocooper.com

http://www.rroopstr.com

Caracas, 6 de diciembre de 2009

October brainstorming time

Rubén — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:03:00 GMT

I did not want to leave October behind without writing a quick note, and there are only a couple of hours left for the end of this month, so this entry is written in a hurry with minimal proofreading. I have been incredibly busy and my blog writing has been temporarily deferred. I don't even know if I will keep on translating everything into Spanish and French as I used to until recently.

I am also concerned on the demographics of blog writing. Most people nowadays have a blog or a web page competing for readership. When I realized that I do not have any time left to read many web pages from other people, I felt guilty and stopped writing here for a while in order to give people time to read any articles I have written in the past and they have not had the chance to read, and also to make sure that I also read my reader's pages to make communication more interactive.

I am not going to edit my previous blog article on the social platforms, though I must admit I have found a use for twitter. I have a policy of not following people who have over 300% in their followers/following ratio. That means, people who just like to be followed but who do not want to follow. If someone is followed by 5000 people, who in turn follows 3000 people, I infer that this person is interested enough in learning from others, which speaks to me wonders about the openmindedness of that person.

I am incredibly busy on Linkedin and my network has quickly grown to almost 1300 contacts worldwide. My network is becoming stronger in Canada, Japan, India, the Netherlands, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, while maintaining my initial contacts in the United States. I believe that online networks have the potential of overcoming national governments as people will increasingly become identified with the global village rather than to countries that were established in scarcity eras when militarily oriented rulers drew artifical borderlines on maps. I am trying to rebuild an international peace and love mood that current events are threatening to dismantle. My challenge is to get to know a little better all of these people recently met. I disagree with those that say that personal face to face relationships are superior than online relationships. Many of the topics I care about are not immediately shared with the people I encounter in my limited Caracas environment and I have engaged in great online conversations with people worldwide. I invite any of you to contact me directly if you feel you may add any value to anything I have discovered so far.

This month of October 2009 had no stock market crash, just an orderly retracement that may continue during November. In any case it is worth noting that Venezuela has relied on huge government expenditures in recent years to promote some artificial growth, and the GDP results in the USA for Q3 show that the U.S. has also taken that dangerous path. Those government stimuli what they ultimately do is to delay the recovery process further. It would not surprise me that the markets will plunge again as the stimuli get removed worldwide.

Another reason why I feel that there is a continuing erosion of market value globally, is because consumers no longer feel compelled to buy everything that is produced and advertised by traditional media. Consumers through the internet are forcing companies to know exactly what their desires are, and many of these desires, of higher philosophical than material degree, are not being adequately met by multinationals quoting on the stock markets. So this recession reflects a shift on consumer priorities. It is my hope that small businesses eventually become succesful in their global village niches and lead the recovery by delivering what twenty-first century humanity really wants.

I am quite pleased to learn about the recent change of government and hope that is rising in Japan, after two long decades of recession. Japanese culture emphasizes thrift and work ethic, and with the changes there favoring a strong yen for the benefit of consumers instead of exporters, I am hopeful that Japan will be able to take a leadership role in the global recovery, for the sake of a world that badly needs cultural role models.

However, the exact opposite holds for Venezuela. Venezuela is not in a position to continue promoting a strong bolívar through an exchange control regime and through the emission of Petróleos de Venezuela bonds in order to appreciate the parallel market exchange rate. Venezuela's lack of global competitiveness, unlike Japan, requires instead that we follow the Japanese example from earlier decades in promoting competitive exports instead of consumer imports that we are unable to afford. We must learn how to save and invest just as the Japanese did so succesfully during over half a century.

My grandmother, Señora Cristina Angeli Lucca de Capriles Ricardo, passed away one month ago, I have recovered some data on her and pictures during many times of her life and hope to write a short biography about her on this blog. She was a founding member of the Child's Orthopedic Hospital in Caracas. Her social work toward the poor, and the way she built and maintained a family and marriage during over 70 years is an example of life for many couples who happily get married and divorced at the blink of an eye. I had the honor to address some comments on her to those gathered at her memorial service.

In conclusion, this was a hectic October for me and I have been gathering lots of ideas and projects, but did not feel like writing a finished blog article as the previous ones. The month-end deadline prompted me to try publishing this out. I hope that writing in a rush does not become my writing style indefinitely, but again there are the time constraints. Too many people are trying to write and are trying to read too many things in less and less available time. The clicking/refreshing process of web pages in a browser takes a few seconds longer each day, as the global network bandwidth ever becomes ever more congested and computers become 0.1% or so more obsolete in terms of comparative speed processing every single day. I hope this information overload issue is adequately addressed by other free thinkers in the days and months to come.

Rubén Rivero Capriles

http://www.riverocooper.com

http://www.rroopstr.com

Comparación entre Facebook vs. Linkedin vs. Xing vs. Twitter 23julio2009

Rubén — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:51:00 GMT

La movilidad internacional en un abrir y cerrar de ojos se ha vuelto la norma en un mundo globalizado para las nuevas generaciones. Hasta hace poco uno pensaba que estaba al día con la tecnología disponiendo de un correo electrónico y un teléfono celular. Ya no. Ahora el registrarse en la página web anteriormente mencionada o en un servicio similar de otra marca es cada vez más indispensable para permanecer interconectados en esta era de la información, y la información en el siglo XXI, como sabemos, en un sinónimo del poder.

No conocemos a nuestros vecinos físicos ya que nos mudamos de una casa a otra, de una escuela a otra universidad, y luego a un trabajo, a otro estado y finalmente a otro país. Perdemos constantemente el contacto con nuestros mejores amigos. Llegamos a la mediana edad con múltiples memorias y súbitamente nos damos cuenta que no tenemos a nadie con quien compartirlas a menos que nos conectemos en línea, escondidos con un seudónimo, e intentamos mostrar nuestra personalidad real pero ocultando nuestra verdadera identidad por temor a los spammers.

Facebook pudiera ser una solución a nuestra alienación personal. Compensa nuestra falta de interacciones personales verdaderas con nuestros vecinos físicos y abre oportunidades que nuestros padres y abuelos nunca pudieron soñar. El año pasado logré unir almas compatibles de Chile, Haití, Colombia y el Reino Unido, que de otro modo nunca se hubiesen conocido. Ahora tienen una gran oportunidad de compartir sus vidas de una manera completamente inesperada. Nosotros, la generación del internet, tenemos una herramienta formidable para expandir nuestros círculos y posibilidades sociales para llegar a niveles sin precedentes en la historia humana. A través de nuestras relaciones internacionales cada vez más complejas podemos efectivamente romper las barreras de la guerra y la ignorancia mucho más eficazmente que cualquier tipo previo de diplomacia pudo alguna vez lograr. Por favor traten de crear maneras de mejorar el uso de esta magnífica herramienta. Nosotros ni siquiera imaginamos las excelentes capacidades en interacción humana a las cuales somos capaces de evolucionar. Después de todo, los seres humanos somos todavía unos animales sociales, y apenas estamos aprendiendo una de las formas de socialización más eficientes jamás inventadas.

Recientemente noté, sin embargo, que Facebook es insuficiente para las necesidades de hoy. Como adultos hemos logrado contactar de nuevo a los amigos de la infancia. Sin embargo después de estar conectado por más de un año con la mayor parte de mis amistades, y luego de haber obtenido suficiente información sobre sus vidas actuales, me doy cuenta que Facebook cada vez más se confierte en una plataforma de juegos interactivos. Ciertamente es divertido jugar con todas esas aplicaciones de Facebook, pero las mismas no ayudan a explotar la oportunidad de convertir a esos amigos de vieja data en nuevos contactos comerciales claves. Por esa razón actualmente transcurre una migración desde Facebook hacia la plataforma Linkedin. Los usuarios de Linkedin incorporan su currículum y sus actuales metas profesionales y luego pueden expandir su red a través de un sistema de presentaciones que permite a un usuario ser presentado a una tercera persona que no conozca, siempre y cuando ambos compartan un contacto común. De este modo he podido en los últimos días expandir mi red profesional, ojalá se presenten nuevas oportunidades de negocios a través de este proceso de reducción de los grados de separación entre la gente en cualquier parte. Todavía es temprano para concluir cuál de estas dos plataformas, a largo plazo, habrá resultado más útil. Sólo comento que Facebook me ha ayudado bastante hasta los momentos, pero sus limitaciones me motivan a utilizar ahora algunos servicios de Linkedin que no están disponibles en Facebook.

En muchos países de habla hispana, sin embargo, Linkedin no es ampliamente conocido. Me sorprende que mis contactos en Canadá y los Estados Unidos tengan cientos de otros contactos, lo cual permite a muchos usuarios estar fácilmente al alcance de una red de millones de personas. En cambio, muchos de mis contactos venezolanos (y yo mismo) apenas hemos sido invitados a unirnos a Linkedin y sólo tenemos un puñado de otros contactos quienes a su vez poseen sólo uno o pocos contactos. Por lo tanto un usuario Linkedin promedio en Venezuela tiene acceso a una red bastante pequeña dentro del país, que sólo llega a algunos miles de personas... Por otra parte Xing se ha arraigado más. Me parece que Xing es muy complicado para añadir contactos. Nunca publica ninguna dirección de correo electrónico y sólo te permite enviar un comentario a alguien una sola vez a la semana. No debería sorprender que yo todavía no tenga contactos en Xing a pesar de haber abierto mi cuenta hace ya varios meses. En muchos grupos locales de Xing, gran parte de los usuariso sólo cuentan con pocos contactos. Por eso con Xing usted se puede enterar que existen determinadas pero no hay modo de contactarlas a menos que alguna de esas personas resulten disponer de su propia página web o blog donde usted podrá remitirles comentarios.Lo que prefiero hacer es revisar quiénes están en Xing que yo desee contactar y posteriormente trato de contactarlos por Linkedin. No me sorprende haberme enterado que el crecimiento de Xing se ha estancado.

El peor de todos, por supuesto, es Twitter. No he logrado averiguar para qué sirve Twitter. Teniendo ya que lidiar con cuentas de Hotmail, de Gmail, de Yahoo, del proveedor de servicios, cuentas de correo del sitio web, páginas web para el estado de cuenta de las tarjetas de crédito y de la cuenta corriente, y múltiples otros nombres de usuario y constraseñas, el tener que conectarse también a Twitter es una inconveniencia redundantemente innecesaria.

De todos modos, a pesar de estos adelantos tecnológicos, la economía no se recupera. El uso de estas redes de hecho no está mejorando las condiciones para los negocios. Quizás estas diversas redes sociales y empresariales simplemente ayudan a moderar la caída económica. Es demasiado común ver a muchas personas con impresionantes contactos, a quienes a su vez les resulta muy difícil convertir sus iniciativas en ventas.

Rubén Rivero Capriles. Caracas, noviembre 2008 - julio 2009

Rivero & Cooper, Inc. Rroopstr

Comparing Facebook vs. Linkedin vs Xing vs. Twitter (UPDATED JULY 23, 2009)

Rubén — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:47:00 GMT

International mobility at a moment’s notice has become the norm in the globalized world for the younger generations. Until recently one thought one was up to date with technology with an e-mail address and a cellular telephone. Not anymore. Registering oneself in any of the aforementioned web page or a similar competing service is increasingly becoming a must to stay interconnected in the age of information, and information in the 21st century as we know is a synonym of power.

We do not know our physical neighbors because we move from one house to another, from one school to another university, and then to a job, and then to another state or country. We lose touch with our best friends. We get to our middle age with lots of memories and suddenly realize we have nobody to share them with unless we go for a forum online, hidden with a nickname, and we make an attempt to show our real personalities but concealing our identity for fear of spammers.

Facebook could be a solution for our personal alienation. It compensates our lack of real personal interaction with our physical neighbors, but it opens opportunities that our parents and grandparents would have never dreamt about. Last year I was able to unite matching souls from Chile, Haiti, Colombia and the United Kingdom, who would have never met otherwise. They now have a great opportunity to share their lives in a wholly unexpected way. We, as the internet generation, have a formidable tool to expand our social networks and possibilities to levels unprecedented in human history. Through our increasingly complex international relationships we can effectively break the barriers of war and ignorance much more effectively than any previous kind of diplomacy has ever been able to achieve. Please create ways to improve the use of this magnificent tool. We do not even know the superb capabilities in human interaction which we are capable to evolve. After all, human beings are still social animals, and we are just learning one of the most efficient ways of socializing ever invented.

I recently noticed, however, that Facebook is insufficient for today's needs. As adults we have been able to reach again our long dated friends. After having been connected; however, during one year to most of my friends, after having retrieved enough information about their current whereabouts, I now notice that Facebook has increasingly become an interacting gaming platfrorm. While it is fun to play around with all of those Facebook applications, they do not help in exploiting the opportunity of converting those long dated friends into new key business contacts. For that reason a migration is now taking place from Facebook to the Linkedin platform. Linkedin users submit their curriculum and current career goals and are able to expand their network through a neat presentation scheme that allows users to be introduced to people who they do not know, as long as they share a common contact. This way I have been able to recently expand my business network and hopefully new business opportunities should arise through this process of reducing the degrees of separation between people anywhere. It is still too early to conclude which one of these two platforms, at the end, will prove most useful. I am just pointing out that Facebook has done a great deal for me so far but its shortcomings are prompting me to use some Linkedin services unavailable through Facebook.

In several Spanish speaking countries; however, Linkedin is not widely know yet. It amazes me that my contacts in Canada and the United States have hundreds of further contacts, which enables most users to be within easy reach of a network of millions of people. In contrast, many of my Venezuelan contacts (including myself) have been recently invited to join and we only have a handful of other Venezuelan contacts who in turn also have just one or a few other contacts. So an average Linkedin user in Venezuela has quite small network available within the country, reaching just thousands of people... On the other hand, Xing has taken a better root. I find Xing too complicated for adding contacts. It never publishes any e-mail address and only lets you leave a comment to someone once a week. Not surprisingly, I don't have any contacts on Xing despite having opened my account a few months ago. On many Xing local groups, most users only have a handful of contacts. So with Xing you may know that people exist but there is no way to contact them unless they happen to have a web page or blog and you leave comments directly there. So what I am doing is just looking who is around Xing that I am interested in contacting and then I try to contact that person through Linkedin. No wonder Xing's growth has stagnated.

The worst of them all, of course, is Twitter. I have been unable to find out what Twitter is for. Having to deal with accounts with Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, ISP e-mail account, website e-mail accounts, credit card web pages, checking account web pages, and various other logins and passwords, having to deal with Twitter as well is a redundantly unnecessary inconvenience.

Moreover, despite these technological advances, the economy does not recover. The use of these networks is not actually improving business conditions. Perhaps these social and business web networks are just helping to moderate the downturn. It is all too common to see lots of people with impressive contacts, all of whom are finding it increasingly hard to convert a few leads into sales.

Rubén Rivero Capriles. Caracas, November 2008 - July 2009

Rivero & Cooper, Inc. Rroopstr