The fairly large network I have on Facebook has been all a buzz this week - leading up to the SHRM conference in Las Vegas, with BeKnown - the latest in a trail of a new shiny badge badge earning, network growing apps. This time, the developer is not an unknown avant garde start up. It's Monster.

I have resisted all the annoying inadvertent auto invites from my friends because I'm already connected to them, I can find candidates without a Facebook app and I have been down this path with other well intentioned similar apps - most recently BranchOut, which I was slightly interested in at first, have never used and have stopped accepting invitations to. It shares many similarities with BeKnown.

The only other piece of critical analysis I have seen this early in the 'game' is from Jason Buss at TalentHQ. By the way, the comment left on his post left me with a funny feeling, kind of like when I post something positive about my Blackberry Playbook and the iPhone squad converges on me.

Giving credit where it's due, I applaud the great timing. Many of my peers are holed up on a man made oasis in the desert collecting vendor swag and blogging away between speakers, many about BeKnown (and doing other things that I'm sure will stay in sin city). Monster can count on them to recruit plenty of joiners. Like cult members, my contacts are joining, joining, joining...

You'll have fun competing with your connections to see who has the best badges.

Seriously?

Facebook is fun, or serious, or fun and serious depending on how you use it - but do we really need to earn badges and compete with our friends based on work history, education, size and composition of our professional network and endorsements weve given or received?

I have mental images of a swarm of bees.. I'm going to stay behind this time I got stung once and it meant a trip to the ER. If it turns out I'm being ridiculously narrow minded I'll put my big girl pants on, self-inject some epinephrine and blog an apology - but I highly doubt that will happen.

You guys have fun collecting and comparing your badges for being professionals. Been there, done that in Brownies.


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