From JibberJobber blog: LinkedIn maintenance you need to do immediately

The person in JibberJobber blog is correct; we spend a lot of time building our profiles in LinkedIn and don't want to loose that work. To guard against it, she recommends doing two things (quoting):

1. Export your contacts. Simply click on Contacts, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on Export Connections, and follow that process. Just leave everything at default and you’ll end up with your connections in a .csv file, which opens in Excel.
2. Export your profile. You’ve probably put a fair amount of thought into creating your profile, right? What about any references you have gotten? Simply click on Profile, then find the grayed-out icons above your name, and click on the adobe pdf icon. This exports your profile, including recommendations, into a very nice, presentable document (kudos to whoever at LinkedIn did that formatting, it is very well-done!).
   

I just did this and it took less than a minute and was easy. No I have this information on my PC in case I ever need to recreate my profile on LinkedIn. Why would I need to do that? Ah...read JibberJobber.

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Technorati tag: LinkedIn

Survey reports that hiring managers are turning to online social sites

An article in the May 16, 2008 Central New York Business Journal reports that many hiring managers are turning to online social networkings in order to find new employees. The survey, done by ICR, an independent market research firm, reported that:

...62 percent would turn to professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, and 35 percent would refer to social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace.

Colleen Accetta, branch manager for Robert Half Finance & Accounting, said:

It can't replace the personal touch, obviously. It can't replace the traditional hiring process but it certainly opens the field for you to include employee referrals, working with specialized recruiting firms, just casting a wider net, I believe.

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Technorati tags: Social Networking Tools, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn

Article: Facebook vs. LinkedIn: Which is better for business?

Which is better for business? ComputerWorld created six business scenarios to see which networking site performed better. While they found no absolute winner, you might read the scenarios and decide to select one site over the other.

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Technorati tags: LinkedIn, Facebook

Blog post: Best of Linked Intelligence 2007

This blog post contains links to ten tips, including how to politely decline a LinkedIn invitation.

LinkedIn can be very powerful. In order to tap into that power, you need to know what to do (and what not to do). Therefore, make it a point to read tips that people publish and to continue to learn how to use this tool.

Article: LinkedIn Introduces New Features and the Intelligent Applications Platform

This article give a bit of an overview of what's coming with the new and improved LinkedIn...and here is more from Wired. Not everything is released yet, so we'll need to be patient.

Article: Why you'll finally use LinkedIn

This article is a quick read and gives you the reporter's and LinkedIn's CEO perspective on the site. For example:

Linkedin, by contrast, is a sort of high-end consensual database of colleagues. In some ways it aims to turn the entire planet's workforce into one big set of colleagues, who only come to know one another when one can solve a problem for the other. You can look for that job or find that consultant or employee, because Linkedin's member data is essentially open for all to see, and because the site offers search tools to help you slice and dice it. (They are much more sophisticated and useful if you're a paying member.)

BTW an updated version of LinkedIn is in the works that will make it more of a portal that you use daily.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, LinkedIn

Blog posts: LinkedIn for Newbies

Well this is a link to a 10-part series on LinkedIn for newbies. If you're using LinkedIn, but still not feeling connected, this posts may provide the help and inspiration that you need.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, LinkedIn

Article: (part 1) Social Networking Tools: Let's Be Social

[This article is divided into three parts: Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3. This article was previously published in the November 2007 issue of the RPCN Newsletter and a version of this article appeared in Oct/Nov issue of the Bulletin of the Information Technology Division/SLA.]

After the presentation I did at RPCN on Sept. 21, I realized that it might be useful to talk more about how I use various online social networking tools and when. I am a firm believer that you need a defined reason (or benefit) to may your use worthwhile, so I am chronicling my benefits in hopes that you might see how they will benefit you.

I spoke about social networking tools in three categories. Some tools help you connect with other people. Others provide ways for you to share information with others. Finally, a growing number of tools facilitate collaborations. A trend is for a tool to work across these three categories and several that I use do just that.

CONNECT

We are used to connect face-to-face, on the phone or via email. Social networking tools allow us to connect in ways that ensure that we are:

• Accessible
• Able to exchange information fast
• In the know and considered part of "the crowd"
• Not "missing in action"

In fact, these tools allow us to be "hyper-linked." You are linked to your colleagues not just in one way, but many ways.

The tools you use to connect to your colleagues will depend on the tools they are using. The people with whom I want to connect are using LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com. Some of us also connect as friends through various sharing services (below) including Flickr.com.

LinkedIn describes itself as "a place to find and leverage professional opportunities, now and throughout your career." There are more than 14 million professional on LinkedIn who:

• Present their professional capabilities
• Find and connect with colleagues
• Use their extended networks to find and reach potential partners, clients, or employees
• Discover business opportunities
• Locate information

A basic account on LinkedIn is free. Premium accounts are available for those who really want to work their networks in LinkedIn. As an example of a LinkedIn profile, you can view mine at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jillhurstwahl . Notice that others on LinkedIn can leave recommendations on your profile that are visible to everyone.

If you are using LinkedIn and want to learn more about using it effectively, read LinkedIntelligence.com, a blog that focuses specifically on LinkedIn. The blog gives great advice for making LinkedIn work better for you. You might also read The LinkedIn Personal Trainer written by RPCN member Steven Tylock.

Facebook.com was originally a place for college students to connect. (Some of us may have memories of the printed face books given to us as college freshman). After a while, Facebook was opened up to high school students, and then to business people. Facebook has replaced MySpace for some, because of its better features and functionality. Facebook describes itself as "a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet."

Here is a good place to talk about privacy as well as learning more about your colleagues. It is important to consider what information you do not want to disclose about yourself online and then be consistent in applying your rule with every social networking tool. For example, I am very honest about who I am and what I do, but I do not disclose my home address.

Since people generally are willing to be more open about their lives in these social networking tools, you can often learn more about your colleagues through these tools rather than what you can learn from them face-to-face or via email. Someone can easily "buffalo" us in a quick face-to-face meeting, but may drop his/her guard online because the person sees these tools as both serious and fun (and we tend to disclose more when we're having fun).

To read a blog post I did on Facebook, go to http://tinyurl.com/ypwg2z . I'm on Facebook for a few minutes each day, updating my status (what I'm doing), checking on a colleagues, and perhaps sending a message to someone else. Facebook has become an important tool for staying in contact with several specific people. I've been able to use Facebook to teach my "friends" what I do in my consulting business, which I believe to be very valuable.

Friends? Many of these tools allow you to connect with "friends." Friends are those people that you want to be connected with, whether they are a friend, acquaintance or someone you don't really know. Who you consider a friend is a very personal decision. Some people will "friend" someone they have actually met face-to-face. My rule for who is a friend is different for each service I use and based on what I'm trying to achieve in a specific social networking tool.

** Continued in Part 2 **

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Sharing, Collaborating, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, MySpace

Quick LinkedIn statistics

These statistics were published in the Sept. 5, 2007 issue of USA Today and give you an idea of why you should be a part of LinkedIn:

• Founded in 2003
• 154 registered users
• More than 1.4 million members who self-identify as senior executives
• All Fortune 500 companies have executives that are members of LinkedIn
• On average, 25 new members join every minute

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Technorati tags: Connecting, LinkedIn

Book: The LinkedIn Personal Trainer

Born out of helping others with LinkedIn, Steven Tylock has written a book entitled The LinkedIn Personal Trainer. The book is a comfortable mix of explanatory text and short exercises to help anyone build a better profile in LinkedIn, create stronger connections, and ensure that LinkedIn does help them professionally. It's actually written in a question/answer format that seems very natural and not stilted.

I read an electronic version of the book while traveling and was amazed at what I learned, even though I've been using LinkedIn for several years. I found myself making notes of things I wanted to change in how I use LinkedIn. One idea I wrote down was to give more recommendations to colleagues. Tylock suggests that we actively seek recommendations for ourselves, but I think we should also voluntarily give recommendations to others, especially those whose work we value.

I've always said that you must "work" LinkedIn in order for it to work for you. Tylock's book proves that my adage is true and gives plenty of tips to help with that effort.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, LinkedIn