I'm given to reverence of older people who have lived through history that I've only read about. One of the people I've revered most is Chester Burger, who at CBS in 1947 became the nation's first TV news reporter, and who went on to a stellar career in the very highest levels of public relations, giving advice to the top management of AT&T, a little gig that lasted from 1955 to 1988.

He used his talent as a communicator to push civil rights in the 1960s, served on countless boards while writing books and taking wonderful photographs.

In his retirement, he's been classy and generous in rendering advice to young Turks, this writer happily included on occasion.

Chet sashayed through the 20th century with a set of 19th century manners.

So I chuckled ruefully when I looked him up on Facebook. I wasn't surprised to find the 87-year-old there grinning above a list of 62 friends of all ages; the man has formaldehyde in his brain case. But it was amusing to be offered the opportunity to:

Another story, another reference to Studs Terkel. Once, when Terkel was about Chet's age now, a young reporter from the Sun-Times called. She was on a story about Chicago celebrities' favorite watering holes.

"Tell me, Studs," she asked, "where do you party?"

In the face of the Economic Mystery, online networking is really the only way to feel we're concretely helping ourselves and others.

A soon-to-be-laid-off communicator told me that one doesn't even appear on headhunter searches unless one has five "recommendations." So everyone is out gathering recommendations from everyone else, and I've gotten a number of requests to recommend people, and I imagine I'll get some more. As I've gotten requests from people I like and admire, so far it's been a pleasure.

I have couple questions, though:

1. So far, people aren't too shy about quid-pro-quo: "Recommend me and I'll recommend you." But don't you think in a competitive labor market, HR people are going to start checking to see: Of all the people who recommended Larry, how many did Larry also recommend? A colleague and I agreed to at least not recommend one another on the same day, so that we could avoid being seen as "log-rolling," as my friend put it.

2. And a speechwriter recently requested a recommendation. "I've already written it for you," he said, pointing me to a paragraph that was well enough written and just accurate enough—"I don't think I've claimed too much," he added—that I reluctantly acquiesced and pasted it in.

But this seems like a practice that could get out of hand, and that's the last time I'm doing that.* And in fact, the next time I get a self-written recommendation from a fellow writer, I'm going to retaliate by instead using the sample recommendation that LinkedIn provides: "_____ is a detail-oriented manager who watches the balance sheet like a hawk without losing sight of the strategic objective."

(Who would want to hire a communicator like that?)

What rules are you making on LinkedIn?

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