Friending co-workers
Every job I've had since the mid 1990s has been the result of connections via social networking. (We called it discussion groups, newsgroups, BBSs, back then.)
Note that while LinkedIn, etc, are great networking tools, they are far more formal than what I am talking about. I'm talking about loose social connections. I got my first corporate job in the mid 90's after a "random" person I barely knew, via an online BBS called "The Well," took the time to have a deeper conversation with me. I was a recently minted "Master" of Sociology, and not sure how to make ends meet, other than to pursue the kinds of jobs I had done while going to school (working in bookstores and food services). He said to me, You're a smart guy and you understand the internet. You should read up on html "programming" and see where it goes for you. There's an author on here (Laura Lemay) who has written "the" book on HTML. Take a look. Within a handful of months, via another social connection, I was working at Apple, and calling 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino my business address. I eventually moved through some marketing work, and then into HR systems, and finally to HR "proper," and that has been my career, ever since.
The last two positions have explicitly been bolstered, perhaps secured, by loose connections on Facebook. If I hadn't been "F" friends with various people who it sounds like most experts recommend I shouldn't have been "F" friends with, I might not have got these (excellent) jobs.
I work with executives every day that visit one another's homes on the weekends, belong to the same social clubs, travel together for vacations, and so on.
I can't imagine that half of them would have had the opportunities they have had, if they didn't *also* travel in the same social circles as one another (in addition to the same professional circles). I'm not saying that many of them got to where they are because of who they know. But often the door was opened and the relationships flourished because though they had the "right stuff", these social connections gave them the opportunity to capitalize on that "right stuff".
I hope the next generation of leaders will rely less on the old-boys-clubs of exclusive, pedigreed "aristocratic" enclaves -- and more on these new-fangled social connections (think Linus Torvalds and not Bill Gates). I can't rely on running into you at a society pageant, or even in the business class lounge in Dubai (fun as that is, and nice as that lounge is!). But I know our paths will continue to cross in a social, non-professional kind of way, via things like Facebook. It's these loose, not-specifically-professional relationships that form that basis of so much important networking... that bleeds over into one's professional life.
I'm not saying all the advice is wrong, per se, but that for me, it's a no brainer: It has been far more positive than negative. Clearly one has to remember that anything on the internet is public, no matter how private or directed. Maybe I just lead a boring life -- or follow the same rules about what I say and do online that I follow in "real" life. But when I see people saying you should sequester yourself, I sometimes wonder whether they are the same people that never lunch with co-workers, chat around the water-cooler, or put pictures of their family or vacations on their cubicle wall. They are certainly at a disadvantage for that x-factor of loose social connections that sometimes result in unexpected opportunities.