LinkedIn Archive

I have been working on several ventures recently. While these ventures have strong technology components, they are focused on other markets. As such, I’ve been dealing most frequently with people outside of the technology world and through this I’ve confirmed something that I saw hints of previously: the people who are truly the most "linked in" are more often than not the most "linked out."

Let me explain. I’ve been a member of LinkedIn for quite some time. It’s a useful service but I would not consider myself an avid LinkedIn user (the type who wants to "join your network" after a five minute conference call). I do, however, make it a point to connect with trusted business associates. Some of the people I’ve been working with recently are very well-connected (and well-known) in their industries. But typically they’re not on LinkedIn or have very few connections on LinkedIn. It seems that, in non-technology industries in particular, if you’re truly connected, you’re not using LinkedIn. This probably isn’t entirely surprising, but it does highlight the fact that amidst all the hype about online social networking for professionals, at the highest levels of business the physical Rolodex hasn’t lost importance.

Different people may have different reasons for not using services like LinkedIn. Here are a few:

You’re too prominent. If you’re well-known, being on LinkedIn may not be a very attractive proposition for you or your inbox. The value of the service’s utility is probably marginalized by the annoyance of being too accessible to others. For instance, I was disappointed when I couldn’t find Ivanka Trump on LinkedIn, but then I realized that she would almost always receive requests from wannabes as opposed to stand-up businessmen like Drama 2.0.

Your network is too valuable to be exposed publicly. In many ways, you are only as good as your network and it’s not what you know but who you know. Providing a public list of your business associates is probably not appealing to a lot of professionals. While LinkedIn’s privacy controls enable users to make their connections private, there’s not much utility in building a network on LinkedIn for the sake of being able to log in and see who you know.

The people in the highest positions are far too busy to use social networks. While LinkedIn can be a good tool for individuals who need to locate or connect with other professionals (i.e. prospective employers, prospective business partners, etc.), LinkedIn is probably an unnecessary service for many.

Not enough utility is provided. LinkedIn can be useful for locating and connecting with other professionals and is somewhat useful for maintaining relationships with associates you already have relationships with. In addition, the company does offer a suite of premium services. But in my experience, it does seem that a significant number of users use it for little more than "collecting" associates like MySpace users collect friends.

There’s no doubt that LinkedIn is very popular and is well on its way to building a successful company but I think there’s still opportunity for existing professional social networks to improve and for upstarts to compete. A couple of suggestions:

• Maintaining relationships is just as important as making connections. Services that make it easier for professionals to manage their relationships might be more compelling than services that seem focused on listing relationships.
• There may be a place for niche professional social networks that are focused on specific industries. Depending on the industry, these networks might be made invite-only to help ensure privacy and quality.

If nothing else, my recent experiences have reminded me that in a day in age when online social networks get all the attention, the best social networks still are still very much exclusive to the real world. Hopefully as more and more professionals join services like LinkedIn they won’t forget that and they would be wise to also remember that building and maintaining relationships requires more than adding associates to an online list.

This post was contributed by Drama 2.0. I still have no idea who he or she is.

Last night there were reports about Yahoo launching an exciting new tool for students and alumni. Named Kickstart the idea is basically a "connection" source for those looking for a job, hiring or just keeping in touch. With that said, I am bringing out the WTF ALERT.

Someone please help me understand the purpose for this site. It’s a direct competitor to LinkedIn. And it has less functionality which sometimes could be beneficial but not in this case. You create a resume and then "find" others that are associated with the school or companies you have been a part of. But that’s it. No groups. No invites, just search and friend.

Mike Arrington appears to really like the service and notes, "What I liked about the service when I saw a demo last week was the possibility to find a deep database of individuals that went to the same schools that I did." Mike – can’t you do this on LinkedIn?

Barry Schwartz at SearchEngineLand has a screen-by-screen walkthrough of the sign-in process. No idea why but heck I got a chuckle out of it :)

NY Nate wonders WTF he is supposed to do after signing in. And Charlie O’Donnell brings the house down with 5 reasons Kickstart won’t start.

Had Yahoo been smart, they would have approached say the Big Ten or the ACC and signed each school up. This way a base of users would have already been in the program. Instead searching on my MBA school provided me with 2 results and my undergrad provided me with zero. Compare that to LinkedIn where hundreds of connections could be made. Their top 10 speaks mainly to making connections and that’s a great idea but what good is it if no one is there?

Not to be completely negative on Kickstart – if they tied it into Yahoo user accounts and allowed for easy export, there could be some potential. But alone I just can’t picture this working. Is this Yahoo’s spaghetti marketing strategy?

At the bottom of the Kickstart page it says "This is Yahoo!" If this is Yahoo, I am scared for their survival. I am the biggest Yahoo supporter since day 1 but lately the company hasn’t shown any innovation and sadly Kickstart is more non-innovation cloning. C’mon Yang get it together pal!

With all of the platforms launching these days (even our own), LinkedIn is taking the smart road and opening up their system to applications that expand their mission. LinkedIn is a business networking tool, period. And it should stay that way. While the Scobles of the world have left LinkedIn for Facebook, when I talk to business execs not in tech, LinkedIn is still their tool of choice.

Saul over at the NYT has an interview with LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye. In it Dan discusses how they will open the system, why they won’t allow "hamburgers to be slung" and thier plans for an IPO.

Some notes:

“We have no interest in doing it like Facebook with an open A.P.I. letting people do whatever they want,” Mr. Nye said. “We’re not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other.”

“On many other Web sites, there is a lot of noise and a lot of interference,” he said. “When you go to LinkedIn, we want you to be confident you can accomplish your goals, be productive and move on with your day. We are not trying to get you to come back multiple times throughout the day.”

I am not sure I agree with Dan’s last comment. LinkedIn should become the business water cooler (not gossip) and to do that, you need return visitors daily. Maybe not 20x a day, but more than once.  Top of mind fellas, top of mind.

LinkedIn has lost some of the popularity they had as many of the bloggers have moved their attention to Facebook and the upcoming platforms from other social networking tools. LinkedIn needs to get that blogger buzz back as it works on opening up. I would like to see a smarter LinkedIn as well.

So the big excitement online yesterday was that LinkedIn has added the ability for users to add photos to their profiles. Caroline has a good overview of the new option and Donna discusses the "right" headshot for your profile.

We know that LinkedIn is used for hiring these days, so I wonder, will it now become more of a Match.com scenario? Some things to consider:

• Will employers be looking for the hottest cutie?
• Will a fat man be passed over just because he is fat?
• Will a woman who looks "old" be passed over?
• What about race issues?

While I know that bloggers in general love to show themselves off, I am not excited for photos to be added to this employment tool. Without the photos, everyone is judged based on their skills in a semi-anonymous way at least on getting in the door. I have always thought the Internet put us all on the same playing field but photos certainly changes that.

Late last week I was meeting with a new client and discussing how to promote her web site. She said one of her clients asked her about LinkedIn and so she asked for my thoughts on it. We wound up discussing the site for about 10 minutes and when I left the office, walking to my car, I started to wonder if this site actually produces results for the users of it.

In my opinion, people use LinkedIn for two basic things. First is to find a job, whether it be full-time or consulting. Second is to network with people they know currently or reconnect with people from their past experiences.

Let's discuss the second first. Because LinkedIn has experienced huge growth, it is an excellent way to find former associates, friends, students, etc. I have found a bunch of people from my past lives to connect with.

Now the reason I believe that LinkedIn exists. To help people find work. And this is the reason I wonder if the site actually works. Guy Kawasaki posted a month ago about a LinkedIn makeover he went through with the staff at LinkedIn. It would be great to have him do a follow-up post about what the results have been with his newly updated robust profile. There is no doubt that he put a lot of time into creating his profile. The comments on his post are mixed with some showing success and many showing it being a worthless service. 

Does the amount of time you put into creating your profile = a better return? I assume more content will equal better results in terms of searches, but does it actually mean a better return in dollar, euro, peso, pound or any other currency. I haven't seen it yet.

In January, LinkedIn posted a release with some quotes about the job situation on LinkedIn. Here are a couple snippets:

John Zwieg, Senior Staffing Manager at Logitech said, "I started a pilot program with LinkedIn last year and in the first three months we were able to successfully fill 22 positions. We’ve now deployed LinkedIn Corporate Solutions across our entire North American staffing team."

Lori Rogers, Recruitment Services Manager with UnitedHealth Group, "LinkedIn has been a huge success and win for our recruiters. We’ve had numerous hires since we upgraded our users to LinkedIn Corporate Solutions. It’s a great source for our recruiters to search for business professionals and network with others in the industry."

I am considering doing a "Kawasaki-style makeover" to my profile and I am curious as to whether you believe it will actually make a difference in terms of gaining possible job inquiries. If so, what are the areas that work for you? Is it good job descriptions? Is it recomendations? Is it linking to as many people I can as possible? What's the best recipe for LinkedIn success?

So what I am looking for is feedback about how you use LinkedIn. Do you use it in one of the two ways I discussed above, or a completely different way? Have you received job offers from using the tool? If so, how much did you have to "work it" to get the offers? Do you believe it is a beneficial tool for employment?

Also, for the corporate LinkedIn partners, what are your results? Are you finding the talent you are looking for?