LinkedIn

[Member Services]

Area Light Member Services presents...a discussion about LinkedIn.

Are you on LinkedIn? Please feel free to share your profile link and comment on LinkedIn in general.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I am just getting going with LinkedIn and I'm not ready to share my profile here yet. I think it is a great place to represent professional and organizational interests. Most of my business ventures and interests are outside Area Light. Here my focus is having something for everyone whereas my private interests are more specific to target markets of individuals who share my personal, professional, and organizational interests/ approaches.

I think because it is focussed on professional interests, they really limit the customizability of the interface- which is appropriate. I think they recently have extended the applications to make sure the application supports professional social networking- so they have features such as recommendations and groups to look into. However, your associations definately seems to depend on offering/ accepting contacts you already know. I have some issues with the InMail system they use which appears to limit e-mail to a paid service. I have to look into it more to find out if it is optional through settings or you really cannot promote your e-mail/ send e-mail to other members. Perhaps once I get my own network built, the e-mail works for free within your networked community.

I am setting up my own group and think this will be a good avenue for promoting my business interests to the professional community at large. I took a look into some of their groups and found it rich with professional associations I'm going to take my time researching. One that stood out to me was Invites Welcome! I think that group might address the "unwelcome" networking where people reserve their groups to private access and specified membership interests. I liked their tag that suggests they are respectful of those communities and also supportive of people who want to grow their networks by being open to invitations. I think I might join up and be a part of their list while suggesting they look into Area Light as an aligned network.

I'll be happy to include my Linkedin profile on My Page and here on this forum once I've finished setting it up.

[Jared O'Toole]

My Profile

I'm fairly new to Linkedin but so far I have found it to be a useful service. I think the 2 best parts about it are the abilities to search by college and by industry. This way you can find alumni on the network and see what they are up to. The industry search lets you find people in your industry. Send them an invite to connect along with a private message, nobody to connect with then people that are already successful in your industry.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

Nice info Jared,

I also noted the industry specific categorization. I am actually excited to see what I find and think the research element of LinkedIn is phenominally understated.

Like Facebook, I'm not totally sure how I want to utilize this resource yet. I generally tend to find a creative use "outside-the-box" for whatever resource is at my disposal- kind of my trademark. LinkedIn is so defined. Perhaps that control is part of the appeal. Then again, for people who want to set themselves apart by waht they do differently/ better it presents some unique challenges.

Strategywise, I bet the key is to be very selective in who you choose to know and how you approach them. I was just thinking about it today actually. I got an invite to my e-mail at work. I wouldn't want to associate my current profile with my job and I'm not so sure you can set yourself up with multiple profiles. Anyway i was thinking of some of the authors of some of my favorite books I'd like to meet and stay in touch with. If I could build myself a good nest of subject matter experts then that would go a long way in affording me a credible network for my business ventures. Not to mention the resource of having such a network at my disposal.

Kind of the proverbial Maxwell's Demon paradox in a way.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I was visiting a friend's profile on Linkedin today and noted he had a link to some kind of Google served blog articles. I was extremely impressed by the content I found when looking in. I'm not sure I've seen this application supported by LinkedIn before and am not sure the relation to Google articles or if that was just his own link out. It did serve to support his professional preferences in his industry specialization. I thought it represented him well. I might get back into building my LinkedIn profile again. It's been a while since I touched it. I wonder what content I might link to and where I would find it. Now I'm aware of this publishing portal. Another avenue to research.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I thought I'd share an announcement I got from LinkedIn. I've noted on this forum that I have been in a process of development with my account, slightly concerned with the limits of their applications, and tuning in to the emergence of more constructive social applications that will be the improvements I have been looking for. It's all a work in progress for me. My intention is to place my company profile on LinkedIn. I intend to use MySpace and FaceBook as well with consideration to the environment features and networking cultures respectively. Now that LinkedIn is jumping forward, I may have to reassess my options and adapt a strategy of development to optimize my preferred results. With this announcement, I will be diving back into their platform and doing an assessment. My expectation would have previously been some manners of dissapointment. However, the depth and width of these applications leads me to believe thye just might be ready to meet and exceed my expectations. We'll just have to see.

Today we're announcing many more ways to interact with your network on LinkedIn. Whether it's a new way to create projects and collaborate, share information, customize your profile, or gain key insights, the new LinkedIn Applications deliver.

Click here and you'll be able to add applications that enable you to:

Work collaboratively with your network.

Box on LinkedIn: Share files and collaborate with your network.
Huddle on LinkedIn: Private workspaces to collaborate with your network on projects.
Share information and keep up to date with your network.

Amazon on LinkedIn: Discover what your network is reading.
TripIt on LinkedIn: See where your network is traveling.
SixApart on LinkedIn: Stay up to date with your network's latest blog posts.
Present yourself and your work in new ways.

Google Docs on LinkedIn: Embed a presentation on your profile.
SlideShare on LinkedIn: Share, view and comment on presentations from your network.
WordPress on LinkedIn: Promote your blog and latest posts.
Gain key insights that will make you more effective.

Company Buzz by LinkedIn: See what people are saying about your company.
Get started by clicking here to visit the Application Directory and add any of the applications listed above.

Regards,
The LinkedIn Team

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I'm still setting up on LinkedIn but have started my research into their new group features. I have a group I have started actively participating in and it works with some interesting utility, feel, and experiences. For now, It's kind of interesting to see how networking is done on LinkedIn. I sometimes get thank you messages from my comments. I've been invited and I guess there is some desperation for invites as well as quota limits for invitations sent in a given time. I guess some of the new changes have addressed some previous abuses and are likely intended to influence more professional networking practices. That's nice.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

Just a quick note: I've been trying out some of the new group features on LinkedIn and they are alright. I noticed a lot of members tagging their profile names with the term, "LION" which I looked into. Appears, given the LinkedIn focus on networking through direct relationships, that it is useful to iterate your openness to recieving invitations to being a part of others' networks or circles of friends. Interesting phenomena and worht comparing to Ning I think. I had it in mind that I would be very selective about who I directly associate with as a network on LinkedIn, but just caught myself having accepted a couple invitations on people I had engaged with. I'm used to jsut accepting friend requests as a courtesy. However, in LinkedIn, it is apparent that it matters who you reflect as your network associates.

I found an interesting set of online resources describing Open Networking on LinkedIn and the concept of LIONs. http://linkedin.pbwiki.com/ActiveNetworkersLooking through some of the discussions, I think I will still side with the more selective approach mentality. Good thing I remembered though! They showed more positive input on this behavior. However, some of the criticisms really make sense to me too. I also think when you engage via groups etc, you are in the open domain so to speak. So if you meet people you really want to know and associate with from that, then I doubt there is any real reason for ascribing yourself as an Opne networker. That's essentially implied isn't it?

Best,

Anthony

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I've been playing around on a Linkedin group for a while and find it a useful networking application. There's something to be said about the professional culture of the site too. I decided it was time to start building my own group and the potential applications at my fingertips are pretty neat. I'm looking forward to the use of group updates which come across as very professional (Linkedin) e-mail marketing. Also, they have a feature for news releases where I guess you type in a link to some article which is distributed to your group members for the sake of discussion.

Other applications I've experimented with are the Q&A forums. Q&A is sort of a hot app on a lot of different networks. I find the Linkedin is underutilized from the professional context. So developing some very professional content for the categories is really a hot prospect.

Also, the jobs forums are great. I applied to a position and was very pleased I could actually see who I was contacting (their profiles and their company information) as well as actually attach my resume in Word. Being free and somewhat bound by terms makes this even superior to the free application of Craig's List in my opinion. Another feature of groups appears to be posting jobs, since a lot of group forums end up riddled with solicitations for employment and opportunities. When someone sees those, anyone can move to the jobs forum of that specific group. I'm not sure, but maybe that is exclusive or maybe integrated with the parent Linkedin jobs board. I have a strategic concept for use of this if it can initiate discussions, however, this is something i'll have to explore in greater detail.

As with a lot of social networking platforms, it appears you have a variety of updates about your activity other people in your network or group can see. Some of the categories of activity such as profile updates seem to be underutilized. I'm thinking an occasional tweek on your profile is doable and will put you right at the top of your network updates. I also see about once a week or so an e-mail summary of activity in your network. All very interesting prospects.