How not to invite me on LinkedIn

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- J Citizen

I hate that... I really do.

So - who the hell are you? and why should I add you to my LinkedIn? and is it really so hard to type just a few words into the text box?

If we've never met before - I don't know you from Adam. If you couldn't be bothered writing a few words about why we should link up - why should I be bothered accepting your invite?

Unsolicited invites with no effort read as SPAM to me, and will be ignored.

I find this particularly common from recruiters trying to fish for Rails developers. Yet the very people you most want to hire are the most likely to ignore a "form-letter" style invite. How many potential goldmine recruits are ignoring you because you didn't put in the effort to explain who the hell you are?

Or maybe I have met you - do you know how common some names are? Like most geeks I'm *crap* at names and I apologise, I've probably forgotten yours... it's nothing personal - but I've met thousands of people in the past year.

You and I probably hit it off at some networking event and we had a great conversation about your new startup and how we could work together... but that doesn't mean I remembered your *name*, it means I remembered who you *are*. Unfortunately, LinkedIn invites only show a name... so you'll have to remind me of who you are... it only takes a few words:

Hi, I'm John, we spoke at Launch48 last year about my new startup FuzzyKittens.com. 
I'm looking for an awesome Rails developer to help on my project. 
Add me to our network?

- J Citizen

*so* not hard.