I’ve been surprised at who knows people in various places – and in fact, entertained, to discover that people I went to college with, for example, ended up married to my cousin works with now. And that they met in Africa, not in either of their Hometowns or mine.

There’s no doubt a disadvantage as compared to people who know a place inside-out because they’ve been there for 20 years. At the same, there’s an advantage to having moved frequently as you end up knowing at least a few people … who then know people … all over the place. If you haven’t tried something like LinkedIn, you might be surprised at the variety of people your old friends know.

Now I do realize that “not very helpful” is not the same as “not helpful at all” — people know people all over the place, and who’s to say a junior prom date may not have connections in Newtown? (The laws of probability make that unlikely, but not impossible, I guess; it’s never happened to me.) The upshot is that I’ve found going through my LinkedIn connections pretty depressing. That’s not hyperbole — I actually find it depressing. My old friends are all very far away; even those who are eager to help can only help within a certain radius.

Given that enforced moving is one of the most consistently insane elements about the academic life — my friends in the corporate world are always horrified when they’re told how little control academics have over where they live — I don’t really think that trawling old alumni hangouts is as helpful for people like me as it was for your client. I’m an enthusiastic user of Facebook and always enjoy getting back in touch with old friends, but I think it’s a poor way to find business connections — at least if you don’t want to KEEP moving to wherever the jobs are. And that’s exactly what I left the academe to avoid.

All this is a roundabout way of saying I’d really like to see your blog address the side effects of constant moves — besides the obvious, that is. Even though I’ve been living in Newtown for five years now, I feel like I’m at a real disadvantage compared to Hometown and Newtown natives who stayed where they were. I feel like a lot of career advice is pitched toward people who’ve managed to build up 20 years of history in one place, and vanishingly few young academics or ex-academics have that luxury any more, if indeed they ever did.