Much has been written about Linkedin Skills and Endorsements and their value (or lack thereof). My favorite stinging insights are described here:
“Stop letting others — the platforms and the people — define how others see you.”
Dang right. A platform and set of game rules that make it too easy to discredit critical thoughts about qualifications in under three seconds (add another second to push a button to commit narrow insights to an online professional profile), does not represent who I AM and/or what I DO, my persona, or what you DO. At best, these semantic checkboxes only loosely and generically represent a passing insignificant thought about what one may (or may not) have done at a moment in time. The contributor didn't intend this of course. In fact, we know they mean well, but while we all appreciate receiving shout outs, I decided some time ago not to reciprocate or join the Endorsement game. I discovered supporting a platform crowdsourcing feature for profile categorization - with the ultimate goal of increasing platform value through data curation - does not represent my professional networking and sharing interests, which linkedin is great for.
-Member #275432, since February 25, 2004