LinkedIn's Skills

A few months ago, LinkedIn introduced "Skills", and the ability for your contacts to endorse such skills. On the surface, it's a cool idea; similar to tags for a profile, and gives a quick overview of a person's capabilities.

There are however some shortcomings that I have noticed over the past few months, both from profiles of my contacts and the endorsements I have received myself. I don't think skills and endorsements are used actively yet; but since LinkedIn is effectively a living and breathing CV; getting it right would be nice.

Firstly, having an endorsement doesn't necessarily mean that the person is capable of making a judgement for such an endorsement. There are many types of contacts on LinkedIn, and not all endorsements are equal.

Secondly, there is no mechanism to make a negative endorsement. Thus, maybe someone thinks they have an actual skill, but in reality, they don't. Some of it seems to be pure embellishment, some of it misguided and some of it just lying - negative endorsements could help leveling the playing filed a bit.

Lastly, while some skills are well defined; my own experience of people populating the skills is rather broad. Thus, skills have become broad terms like "security" or "sales" instead of actual depth. Not all people are specialists, but there seems to be too many generalists.

Movie: Argo

It is a strange premise - to create a movie, about a fake movie, that was used to effect a rescue during one of the biggest diplomatic "rows" in recent history. To its credit, Argo does provide a 1 minute synopsis of what led to the Iran hostage crisis; and throughout the movie; it seems strange that the crisis took place because of the US' reluctance to give up a despotic dictator to stand trial (fairly or unfairly) in his own country.

It is an audacious tale, and while some of the events may be embelished, it does capture quite accurately the mood and the time period. I am not sure if the movie was trying to make a political statement; but by being so unflinchingly patriotic to the US, it does end up making a political statement - even getting negative pushback from the Canadians. 

Ultimately, it works well as a spy thriller; with great acting and action. I am not sure it deserves the raft of awards it has got/been nominated for; but then there is the patriotic thing ...

Counterfeit Ad

When you have spent thousands on your splashy ad at the airport, what you really want is the statement "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting" emblazoned in the middle.

Blue Ocean

I am not referring to the sales jargon; Cape Town's oceanfront has the picturesque blue hue; that just requires you to stare at it ...

Plateklip Gorge

It is one of the most popular routes to walk to the top of Table Mountain, though certainly not the easiest. I haven't been up for over a year, so I specifically flew into Cape Town early enough to do so.

It was not the best day to do the hike; with a strong wind blowing. The wind would become the struggle, higher up the walk, with it feeling like I was in the midst of a storm about 2/3rds of the way up. There was even a cool vortex at the mouth of the gorge!

Ironically, right at the top of the gorge, it was perfectly calm. Table Mountain however was eerily quiet, with not a person in sight (the cable cars weren't running). With the table-cloth bearing down, there wasn't much of a view; but it was still spectacular.