The use of LinkedIn groups

Recently LinkedIn initiated the LinkedIn groups as you know, that's why you are here. They actually didn't initiated it as it already existed but they made the whole process much easier. At the time I initiated a group for Agilent employees and Alumni and it was a painful process to get that done. Anyway, that is not the reason for this entry.

I believe it to be great that you can create these groups and that through this you can connect and share ideas (again very obvious). However, I started testing in how far other groups had any criteria in carefully selecting their members and it became very clear that 80-90% of the groups are not. Only the alumni groups (especially from MBA's and professional organizations) are very restrictive in their selection. All the others simply accept everybody.

I started to feel like a boyscout with all the badges so I took a lot of them out of my profile but I'm now the proud and active member of:

and the list keeps on growing :-) I'm particularly proud of being a member of the Chinese entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, a group which is really dear to my hart ;-).

message: let's make sure this group stays focussed and doesn't become a "me too" club like so many others. What do you feel is the value of groups?