The network experiment - Danes versus Americans

So, the other day I decided to make a little experiment. Nothing scientific, just a fun look into the difference in networking mentality between Danes and Americans. Goal of experiment was to prove, how Danes generally will only accept you into their network, if they already know you, whereas Americans will allow you into their network, if they think your profile looks interesting and they believe they at some future stage might benefit from having you in the circle.

So, in order to test this hypothesis, I went to my LinkedIn profile and looked for people I have never met, but are in some of the same LinkedIn groups as me. I chose to invite 20 Americans and 20 Danes to link to my profile, with just the standard invitation. I offered no explanation of why I wanted to link or acknowledgement of the fact that I don't know these people. Here, 24 hours later, I have what I would consider enough results to prove my point.

Status is, 15 out of the 20 Americans have linked to my profile, some of them with very welcoming comments like "You have such a cool profile" or "What a pleasure to meet you, I look forward to get to know you". Out of the 20 Danes, only 2 have linked to me, 10 have blocked me and 4 have written responses like "Do I know you??" "Why are you linking to me??" "Excuse me, but stop bothering me, I am not interested". SO, obviously 2 very different approaches to networking, but what can we really learn from this. My interpretation is;

1. Americans look upon everything as a business opportunity and are always open to meeting new people. Whether I know you is NOT important. If I believe you can be of value, then why not include you in my network.

2. Danes are always suspicious as to the "hidden" agenda of other people. Are you trying to sell me something?? Are you looking to bother me or ask me a favour?? They generally do not want to spend time on people they don't know and especially people that are approaching them without explanation.

For me it was an intersting experiment, because I learned something about my own approach to people. I used to have the Danish "don't-come-to-close" mentality, but after having been in the states for only 3 months I see how this is limiting me and what great opportunities I get, for unexpected things to happen when I open up and connect to strangers.

So my advice would be, for my fellow Danes to learn from the openness of Americans and let people in, even if you don't exactly know for what reason, I guarantee you will get positively surprised. As for now, I will go back to LinkedIn and spent time to get to know my new contacts and see where it takes me. Happy networking everyone!