Carl Tyler's Blog

1 - Consultants?

2 - Yeah, it's a good guess it is contractors.

3 - I agree, contractors. I know of a few large companys in town with at least 30% contractors in the directory.

4 - I agree with contractors. As I search BluePages I find contractors all the time.

Rock

5 - Contractors, task ID's, multiple entries for staff on secondment across geo's. i.e. a UK employee working out of the Zurich office will have 2 Bluepages entries, I can't see that these put together would add up to that many though

6 - In a social networking discussion with IBMers a couple years ago, they talked about job candidates, particularly in certain roles - and potentially contacting them for collaboration even after not hiring them. The "extra" does seem a bit high for contractors, but probably low for all applicants. Probably a mix of contractors, some candidates, maybe former employees and/or retirees?

Interesting not just from the curiousity perspective, but to consider who you would populate within a "Connections" sort of implementation without cluttering.

7 - Pure speculation, but I would agree with Tim that the discrepancy is likely from contractors, some candidates, and in particular former employees (I remember reading somewhere recently there is a very active IBM alumni network). I wouldn't be surprised if business partners, customers, and suppliers were in there as well.