Frederick Wong's Blog

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In response to Janice Leung’s blog post, I find myself at odds with her analysis of LinkedIn’s new feature; the ability to “Follow Thought Leaders“.

Janice proposes that the ability to follow influential business leaders will lead to an abuse of this new system, with leaders promoting themselves, their businesses, and their own points of view instead of, as their own professional knowledge and insights.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are two of the many influential figures that you can follow

In my opinion, the ability to follow business leaders would be a incredible addition to the professional website. By looking at the viewpoints, opinions and advice of business leaders, we would experience greater growth. These influential business leaders are clearly very successful, accomplished people, and we could stand to gain much from their insight.

I do agree with Janice that these leaders may use LinkedIn to promote their own businesses and campaigns, but I see little problem with this. Perhaps this self promotion would lead to greater opportunities for business professionals, and it may not. It would be impossible to judge the effects of increased promotion on LinkedIn by influential leaders, as anything we think of now would be mere speculation, and potentially, far from reality.

Essentially, it is my view that the addition of the ability to follow business leaders and their opinions/advice would enrich the LinkedIn community, rather than detract from it.

In a purely economic sense, there is no doubt in the minds of many businessmen that tapping into the vast resources of the oil sands is a sound investment. What is holding them back, however, is the public resistance to the idea, and their advocacy of environmental care. Natural resources are the backbone of the Canadian economy, and it seems only logical to use them for Canadian economic prosperity.

Location of the oil sands in Alberta

It is the concept of a National Energy Strategy that is central to Herle and Swann’s article. With the lack of an official, government policy, companies are reluctant to undertake ventures regarding the oil sands, and possibly even worse, the sale of Canada-based oil sands company Nexen to the Chinese oil corporation, CNOOC. This would, to some degree, place control of Canadian resources in foreign hands, an idea few would embrace.

It’s also important to note the divisive opinions of Canadians. Primarily, Albertans resent the attempts to redistribute oil-sands generated wealth, while citizens in the rest of Canada, to some degree, feel that a redistribution of wealth is justified, as it is a Canadian resource.

Canadians are divided on the oil sands, and without a National Energy Strategy, and official policy on oil sands development, companies too, will be divided.

For the article referenced by Herle and Swann, see here.