LinkedIn, We Need This

That’s probably true for most social media websites.

What started as a way to keep in touch with a group of friends and colleagues, ballooned into a profile connected to thousands of professionals. The positive dopamine effect of seeing the number go up is pleasant, sure, but at this point my network has grown beyond the point where I can make any sense out of it.

I think I may need a little help.

Just the other day I got a request to introduce one of my contacts to another. Even though they were both marked as 1^st degree connections, I had to dig around in emails, websites and project credits until I figured out how I knew either of them*.

Wouldn’t it be awesome – I thought – if LinkedIn provided us with some clue of when and how we connected with people in our network?

I sketched a quick mock-up.

The update would add two extra elements to a profile:

1. An indicator of when the connection between you and the other user was established
2. A space for optional notes.

The notes may be pre-populated when LinkedIn figures out how/where the connection was made. Perhaps the two users attended the same event, or worked in the same company. Heck, if you wanted to please the shareholders, you could even market that connection discovery as a super-duper AI feature.

Even without AI, some of this data seems to already be present in the database. It is often surfaced when the app recommends new users to connect to – but hidden otherwise.

Empowering users to track the stories behind their LinkedIn connections would make the networks feel much more valuable. Instead of navigating a faceless list of names, we’d see meaningful markers of past projects, shared events, or even the simple but telling moment of our first conversation.

It’s more than nostalgia; it’s about restoring purpose to our digital professional lives. In an era where human connection feels harder to maintain, wouldn’t this be a small yet impactful way to keep it meaningful?

LinkedIn, it’s time for a little memory boost.