Case 1: LinkedIn
YouTube is for video entertainment; iTunes services music lovers; Facebook is primarily for socializing; Flickr is for photo exchange; Second Life and World of Warcraft are for participating in virtual communities; Gamezone and Shockwave are for gamesters; and so on and so on. It would seem that the Web has anticipated all of our needs and responded. But wait, what’s out there for those of us who want to further our professional lives to visit with others in our field of expertise, to look at jobs that are available in other parts of the world, to find out what’s happening in the business world outside our own familiar circle, and to garner introductions to those who might help us succeed? LinkedIn is an online service that fills this niche. LinkedIn advertises itself as “an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.” As of 2010, LinkedIn had over 60 million members, half of whom were from countries outside the United States, and has executives from all Fortune 500 companies in its ranks. LinkedIn is growing rapidly, with a new member joining approximately every second.
Reid Hoffman, a former executive vice president of PayPal, founded LinkedIn in 2002; the service was launched in May 2003. Hoffman remains chairman of the board at LinkedIn, which is based in Mountain View, California, but also has offices in Omaha, New York, and London. His LinkedIn profile is available at http://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman.
Joining LinkedIn is free; upgrading to a paid account with additional “tools” is optional. Newcomers to LinkedIn create a profile, listing professional accomplishments. Each newcomer then links trusted colleagues, contacts, and clients called connections by inviting them to join and linking to him or her. In this way, LinkedIn participants create their own professional networks, where contacts may number in the thousands. Connections can be used in many ways:
• Users list trusted contacts, who then list their contacts, called second-degree connections. Second-degree connections list their trusted contacts, called third-degree connections. In this way, the original LinkedIn user brings together thousands of professionals, gaining many valuable contacts.
• Users can then find jobs, people, and business opportunities recommended by someone in the network.
• Employers using the network can list jobs and search for available candidates to fill job openings.
• Job seekers can search the connections of potential employers and find mutual connections who might introduce them.
A free feature called “LinkedIn Answers” lets users ask business-related questions for the community to answer. LinkedIn Groups is another free feature that allows users to make additional contacts by joining alumni, professional, or other job-related groups. A mobile version of LinkedIn is available in six languages. LinkedIn continues to push mobile use with their latest updated iPhone application and has also announced better integration with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus software a clear move to better align themselves with business users.
There are ways to enhance one’ s use of professional profile sites such as LinkedIn, writes Kevin Donlin for the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune. First, enhance your profile. One way to do this is to jazz up your profile with a few pertinent details and statements from colleagues. For example, staff members at LinkedIn advised Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures in San Francisco, California, to add the following statement from a former colleague at Apple Computers, where Guy said he was “chief evangelist.” “Spirited and exceptionally bright with a highly developed sense of humor, Guy continues to be one of the most gifted marketing executives I know.”
Enhance your profile, Donlin advises, but “keep your dirt to yourself. According to NBC News, 77 percent of employers will search the Internet to check your background, and 35 percent of employers have eliminated a candidate for consideration after finding ‘digital dirt’ about them online.” So don’t post that video of yourself imbibing too much at a party on Facebook, and remember that potential employers may not appreciate the video of the tasteless practical joke you played on a friend, so keep it off YouTube.
Like some other social media sites, LinkedIn has come under recent criticism for its threats to business and corporate security. According to the latest annual Security Threat Report by Sophos, an information security firm, LinkedIn is increasingly being used as a conduit for hackers and other malicious entities to develop “road maps” attacks. According to the report, LinkedIn is providing what amounts to a corporate directory of who works at a firm and what their responsibilities are as well as corporate e-mail addresses. Armed with this type of knowledge, hackers can easily devise a social engineering attack the act of manipulating people into divulging confidential information and target who and what they want to attack to effectively meet their sinister goals.
Security concerns aside, LinkedIn is clearly a valuable technological tool for Internet users and entrepreneurs alike who are looking for better ways to network.