!
<body>

Post-acquisition exodus revealed through social software

This is kind of interesting, to me at least...

One of the big public companies I used to work for was recently acquired by another very big public company. I've been wondering how the post-acquisition integration has been going, and I think I may just have something of a clue.

When I signed into LinkedIn earlier today, I noticed something a little startling. Towards the bottom of my LinkedIn personal home page, there's a section headed "Just joined LinkedIn".

As you'd imagine, this section lists individuals who've recently signed up for the service and, in doing so, have listed one of my former employers in their profiles. The LinkedIn system helpfully assumes there might be a connection here, and presents the list of (usually) two or three new people, in case I'd want to add them to my network.

I think it's kind of telling to note that the "Just joined" section today features no less than 50 new colleagues from that certain large public company.

Ouch.