If you’re of a certain age, you know what it’s like to live through company layoffs. It’s pure hell. Paranoia lays a weird filter over every intra-company experience. If you know someone who got laid off, you just feel awful for them. At least I do. With the economy pumping out more and more bad news, the likelihood that you or someone you know will be laid off increases every day. TechCrunch has even started tracking the demise in the tech sector. So. What I suggest is we take a pro-active step in making the transition a little smoother for at least one person (more is better!) in our social network– should it unfortunately happen to them.

I’d like to establish Wednesday, October 29, 2008 LinkedIn Pay it Forward Day. It’s simple, choose one person in your social network and write a LinkedIn recommendation for them on that day. Everyone has worked with someone in their network who is deserving of a positive recommendation. The randomness of the recommendation will make it satisfying for you and the recipient.

There’s not much we can do collectively to arrest the hemorrhaging in our economy, but we can take a few charitable actions to assist others who are affected by it.