This is my first post on the LinkedIn Blog that I write less than a month since I started here as Vice President of People Operations. I became a member of LinkedIn the day the site launched on May 5, 2003, and I’m thrilled to be playing a role in helping build a truly great company.
The LinkedIn team has more than tripled in size in the last 12 months; we’ve hired over 200 talented individuals in every possible group within the company ranging from engineering to marketing. We’ve got the core of a world-class team, but we’re just getting started; as we continue to grow and expand, we’re continuing to seek the best and the brightest. And as we bring new people into the organization, we’re committed to give them the best professional experience of their lives.
My joining here has coincided with the launch of LinkedIn's revamped recruiting site - Work at LinkedIn. We have made the site easier to navigate and filled it with the most current information that any job seeker needs to learn about working at LinkedIn. It's broken into five simple categories:
Here's an interesting tidbit on the recruiting site's homepage. The different keywords that populate the "knowledge halo" around the featured LinkedIn'ers is an accurate representation of their professional interests!
Expect the new recruiting site to be filled with the latest info both on what's happening at LinkedIn, the latest job openings and the folks you’ll work with if you join us on this journey. Because we believe the perfect work environment is the one in which you not only enjoy the work but also the company you share. Isn't that the essence of professional networking!
A week ago, Mario blogged that "FOX Business gets LinkedIn" - an obvious reference to the interview that Dan Nye, our CEO, gave to Liz Claman. Subsequent to that interview many of you may have read our recent Series D funding announcement in a post interspersed with a video from our four investors.
You may have also stumbled upon the commentary from one of these news outlets:
In addition to the above-mentioned coverage, Dan and Reid, were also interviewed by CNN and CNBC (Too bad, we couldn't embed the video clips in the post itself).
However, we've got two parts of an interview that Sarah Lacy (Yahoo! Tech Ticker) did with our co-founder, Reid Hoffman that you can view below.
One of our fundamental beliefs at LinkedIn is that the company you keep is one of the most credible reflections of who you are and what you have to offer.
Like individuals, successful companies are also built on strong networks of relationships, and LinkedIn continually strives to create the right partnerships to help us build a great service for our members, and advance our business.
Today I am happy to announce that LinkedIn has raised additional funding from our original investors and added another world-class investor to our team. Bain Capital Ventures joins our existing group of investors - Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Bessemer Ventures - and leads this round of investment at a total of $53 million.* (LinkedIn has previously raised $27 million).
This significant investment is indicative of the confidence shared by our investors in our business model and our long-term growth strategy. Watch Jeffrey Glass (Bain Capital Ventures), David Sze (Greylock Partners), David Cowan (Bessemer Ventures), and Mark Kvamme (Sequoia Capital) describe their reasons for investing in LinkedIn. Download high-res version of the video interview here.
Because LinkedIn has been profitable since 2006, we can remain intensely focused on providing value to over 23 million professionals on LinkedIn (as of June 2008) - a number that is growing at a torrid pace.
This additional funding will give us even more flexibility to execute on our vision for millions of professionals to increase their effectiveness by using LinkedIn to build relationships and exchange knowledge, opportunities and advice.
Many of you may have read our CEO Dan Nye's response to user questions originally published on the New York Times' blog BITS by Saul Hansell. Since that Q&A was published LinkedIn has grown at a torrid pace, our workforce has grown from 60 to 310 in 16 months (more in below interview), and we've outgrown our second floor headquarters in Mountain View! (see pictures here)
Check out Dan's most recent interview on the Fox Business Network with Liz Claman that was streamed live earlier today (see video below). Dan talks about LinkedIn's philosophy of professional networking & productivity, our growth trajectory as well as our vision for the future.
Want to see more? Find an extended version of Dan's interview right below. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below.
I'm currently down in Los Angeles at the Digital Hollywood Conference and one thing I keep hearing over and over from people that I've met down here is, "How do I take LinkedIn to the next level?" Luckily for me I have four terrific recent customer stories that I've been able to share with folks I've met.
Alison Doyle at About.com just recently wrote an article about how four LinkedIn users were able to use our site in different ways to find their dream jobs. I love this article because it showcases the fact that there is more than one way to find jobs on LinkedIn.
This article tells how Evan Gotlib found his job at TravelZoo by doing a random job search on LinkedIn. Liz Manning found her job at Benevia by looking through her connections on LinkedIn to find someone she might know at the company she wanted to work for. Steve Weinstein found his by getting contacted directly by a Cooper Power System's HR personnel and Chuck Hester found his job at iContact by expanding his network organically. The article is a terrific read and definitely showcases the power of LinkedIn.
Linked[In the News] is a weekly series featuring news articles culled from mainstream media and the blogosphere that covers relevant topics on professional networking and LinkedIn. Here's our top five news articles for the week in no particular order. Enjoy your weekend!
BBC News technology reporter Maggie Shields wrote a recap piece on CMP Media's Web 2.0 Expo which took place this week in San Francisco. In the piece, Shields noted that social networks are one of the "most persuasive forces on the net." LinkedIn was one of the networks that Jennifer Pahlka, co-chair of the conference, called out during her interview with Shields.
CIO Magazine's editor-in-chief, Abbie Lundberg, wrote a lengthy post about the new partnership that has taken place between CXO Media and LinkedIn. Lundberg does a great job of explaining the partnership and detailing the many conversations that took place in the editorial department before the partnership was created. This is a great read if you want to learn more about what LinkedIn is doing in conjunction with CXO Media.
Daily Herald reporter Jamie Sotonoff wrote an article this week which featured a number of LinkedIn's Chicago users. Tracy Price-Lynch talked about how she uses LinkedIn to do research and "mine for sales opportunities." David Rudduck, the press secretary for Governor Rod Blagojevich, was also mentioned in the article as using LinkedIn as part of his job. Geri Kleeman, also of Chicago, was quoted as saying that LinkedIn helped her find new clients by working her
connections.
Liz Wolgemuth of U.S. News & World Report did a piece on Aaron Strout, the VP of Mzinga. In the article, Strout talks about how he used a variety of Web 2.0 tools like LinkedIn to find, research and hire employees for Mzinga.
Blogger Pete Paz of The Blogging Times wrote a piece about Ellen Levy who just joined the team here at LinkedIn as our VP of Corporate Strategy. The article details a few of the many exciting careers that Ellen had prior to joining us here at LinkedIn.
In fact, if you have a boss, he or she may be pleased to know you're out there connecting because that can help you do your job." She goes on to note that sites like LinkedIn have become, "...accepted tools for finding consultants, partners, service providers or even answers to questions that can be addressed to your network."
It's no secret that LinkedIn is full of more than 21 million amazing and ambitious professionals, so it comes as no surprise that Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain would want to see what's on the mind of today's savvy professionals. McCain was the latest in our long list of celebrity guests (Microsoft's Bill Gates, Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, etc.) who've hopped online to hear from the largest online community of professionals.
Gwen Moran of Entrepreneur wrote a piece on how to navigate potential awkward situations online. If you're interested in learning what you should do when someone you don't know sends you an invitation to connect on LinkedIn, check out Heather's piece here
Our Very Own LinkedIn Evangelist/Blogger Mario Sundar! Beth Snyder Bulik of Advertising Age posted an article about how to decide whether or not your company needs a chief blogger. One of our very own, Mario Sundar, got called out in the piece by Mack Collier (a social-media consultant and blogger at the Viral Garden) as, "a single personality positively affecting a brand." Way to go Mario!
CXO Media and LinkedIn announced a partnership this week that will enable CXO readers to leverage both the publications' content and their LinkedIn network to "discover and create professional connections between you and the companies you read about." If you're interested in learning more about the partnership, check out Michael Friedenberg's CEO Letter.
We had a number of interesting LinkedIn hits this week in the news. Here’s a quick summary of five of the most recent articles found on LinkedIn:
1. When Barbara met Deirdre! Doing good on LinkedIn - New Mexico Business Daily
My personal favorite story this week came from Megan Kamerick of the New Mexico Business Weekly who wrote an article on how two LinkedIn customers ended up doing business together. Megan interviewed two LinkedIn users, Barbara Lemaire and Deirdre Billington for her piece. Barbara (who works for a non-profit that helps homeless women rebuild their lives) met Deirdre (Big Tattoo Wines in Virginia) through a LinkedIn Group called Non-Profit Organizations of New Mexico. A few quick conversations later, Big Tattoo ended up selecting Barrett Foundation as its beneficiary in New Mexico.
As Barbara says:
It pays for organizations to have a presence on the Internet, especially on the professional networking sites like LinkedIn.com.
3. How LinkedIn can help build careers around open source projects - CNET Blog
Matt Asay of CNET’s "The Open Road” Blog posted an interesting article about how LinkedIn can help open-source folks find people that are using and building careers out of their open-source projects. If you’d like to read the full piece, click here
4. The classic case of LinkedIn etiquette - Entrepreneur.com
Entrepreneur.com had a neat article this week about online etiquette. LinkedIn was included in the piece. If you’d like to learn more about how to avoid sticky social situations online, check out the full article here.
5. Q&A with Patrick Crane - WGN-AM
Patrick Crane, LinkedIn’s VP of Marketing and Advertising, was recently interviewed live and on-air on WGN-AM's WGN Overnight which is the #1 overnight radio show in the Chicago market. Patrick chatted with the show’s host, Brian Noonan, on the types of professionals most likely to be on LinkedIn and answered live questions from the listeners.
LinkedIn was mentioned in 4 separate articles in the March 17th issue of AdAge. While 4 of the pieces appeared in AdAge's TalentWorks (a job hunting/recruiting focused supplement), the other piece appeared in the Digital section of the publication.
My favorite article by far is "The New Way to Network for a Job.” Erik Sherman, the reporter, interviewed Brenley Brotman of Symantec, one of LinkedIn's Corporate Solutions customers. He also spoke to Wanda Anderson, another LinkedIn user.
Check out links to all 4 articles including links and a few quotes, which summarize the piece best can also be found below:
When it comes to finding new talent, Mr. Cantarella points to a
favorite adage of Time.com Managing Editor Josh Tyrangiel: "Fish where
the fish are." So the company uses sites such as Craigslist, Facebook
and LinkedIn, along with more traditional networking tools.
The fact is, the social networking sites can be wonderful tools for the workplace. If you are a new-business director and while searching Linkedin, you discover that your college buddy is now Director of Marketing at McDonald's, I think you just found yourself a new best friend.
The results are effective. "If I contact, say, 10 people on LinkedIn whom I'm interested in pursuing for a particular position in AutoTrader, I'd hear back from seven or eight of them," says Rebecca Loughlin, a senior recruiter at AutoTrader.com. "With phone calls, even one [reply] would be considered good.
Symantec's head of talent acquisition outlines specific examples of where LinkedIn works
Different networks serve different communities and uses. Mr. Coleman likens LinkedIn to an industry conference, whereas Facebook is a party situation, where you get to see people with their hair down. "Where LinkedIn is great, from our perspective, is [for positions paying] $75,000 or above," says Symantec's head of talent acquisition, Brenley Brotman. "If we wanted to do more entry-level, $30,000 to $50,000, some of those other sites are more effective to us.
And, Wanda Anderson, outlines the best way to benefit from LinkedIn | Use it!
To make social networking work, people on both sides of the search have to use it well. Individuals have to learn how to use the systems. Wanda Anderson, a marketing manager recently between positions, remembers being invited to join LinkedIn a year ago. "I didn't understand what it was," she says. Then her old position was eliminated, and she joined a traditional networking group and found herself getting one LinkedIn invitation after another. She's trying to get past her novice standing. "You don't understand what it means if you're not an avid user of it.
DEMONSTRATE DIGITAL PROWESS THROUGHOUT ANY JOB SEARCH - Find new ways to sell yourself. Describe case studies you've been part of. Have a website built and become active on LinkedIn and other professional social-networking sites. Creatives should have a DVD with examples of all forms of experience, including traditional media.
Our most recent news announcement came early this morning and gathered a slew of attention from some top tier publications. As you probably already know, Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft is asking LinkedIn's 20 million users to give him advice about how to get youths involved in science and technology. All LinkedIn members are being granted permission to give answers/make suggestions to Bill's question in real time. It has already received almost 2000 answers.
Mr. Gates' appearance presents something of a marketing opportunity for the Mountain View, Calif., social network. To coincide with his appearance, Microsoft is buying ads across the site today. It also helps Linkedin promote an unrelated round of changes to the site, including a redesign that allows users to organize blocks of information, or modules, on their profile page, and to write a short statement that keeps their contacts updated on their current doings.
It isn't the first time public figures have used LinkedIn and other networking sites as a platform. In this election year, there's been a lot of online attempts to "connect" ordinary citizens and the candidates. Five months ago, presidential contender Barack Obama posted a question on LinkedIn.
Microsoft Corp.'s big bet on Facebook's online social network isn't stopping Chairman Bill Gates from promoting other popular Internet hangouts. Gates is helping out LinkedIn Corp.'s online professional network by setting up a profile on the service and posing a question to help draw more attention to a makeover of the Web site's front page.
The AP article also appeared in reprinted versions on a number of other sites like Yahoo! News, CNN, ABC News and USA Today.
Social networking has not always been kind to Gates, although he is said to enjoy the technology. Last year, he ran into trouble with his Facebook site when he was overwhelmed with "Friends" requests and had to shut down his site. Microsoft since has made a $240 million investment in Facebook, although it is unclear whether Gates has returned. With LinkedIn, Gates can use privacy settings to prevent random people from asking him to connect to their network.
To me, LinkedIn's Q&A feature is great (I've even used it to get
sources for my stories). Although, as for Bill, I'm sure there will be
a flood of questions. Keep in mind that LinkedIn has 19 million
registered users.
-- What are your thoughts about our brand new homepage design? Did you try and answer Bill Gates' question? Feel free to comment to this blog post. We'd love to hear your thoughts!
Summary: I am running for the Presidency of the United
States of America, but this campaign can't only be about me. It must be
about us - it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must
be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes and your dreams. It will
take your time, your energy, and your ideas to push us forward when
we're doing right and to let us know when we're not. This campaign has
to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense
of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the
power of millions of voices calling for change. (Read more here)
Summary:I was raised in a middle-class family in the
middle of America. From that classic suburban childhood in Park Ridge,
Illinois, I went on to become one of America's foremost advocates for
children and families; an attorney twice voted one of the most
influential in America; a First Lady of Arkansas who helped transform
the schools; a bestselling author; a First Lady for America who helped
transform that role, becoming a champion for health care and families
at home and a champion of women's rights and human rights around the
world. (Read more here)
Summary: I have served ten terms in Congress and have
never wavered from my commitment to the Constitution and the principles
of a free society. I have worked tirelessly for limited
constitutional government, individual rights, low taxes, free markets,
a peaceful foreign policy and sound monetary policies. I am running for
President as a Republican to bring the Grand Old Party back to its
roots as the party of the 1994 Revolution, President Reagan, Sen.
Goldwater and Sen. Taft.(Read more here)
Summary: Born in Brooklyn, New York, Rudy Giuliani knows the value of a strong
work ethic. A graduate of New York University Law School, Rudy Giuliani
was appointed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan as Associate Attorney
General, the third highest position in the Department of Justice. Two
years later, Rudy became U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New
York, where he prosecuted organized crime, white-collar criminals, drug
dealers and corrupt elected officials. In 1993, Rudy became the first
Republican elected Mayor of the City of New York in a generation. He
was reelected to a second term with 57% in a city where Democrats
outnumber Republicans five to one.Rudy lives in New York City with his
wife Judith. (Read more here)
--- Have you stumbled upon any presidential candidates' LinkedIn profile that you'd like to highlight. Feel free to leave a comment. Once again, Happy President's Day!
Did you know? You can ask or answer questions on the topic of Government and Non-Profit within LinkedIn Answers.
It's been a while since we gave you a summary of press mentions LinkedIn has received in recent times. Here's a sampling of the press coverage received this past month:
Wondering how social networking sites have been growing globally, then this is the article for you. Read more on how social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Hi5 have grown internationally this past year.
This month, LinkedIn, the popular networking
site for professionals, opened its first office outside the USA, in
London. It expects to double its customer base in the U.K. to 2 million
this year.
"We are living in a global economy, and all of
these economies are interconnected," says Dan Nye, CEO of LinkedIn.
Half its 18 million members are outside the USA.
There is lots of chatter about how resumes are on their way out. There
will be blogs, and videos, and LinkedIn profiles and other mechanisms
to downplay the concept of a linear career and put upfront the way
someone thinks and the ideas he or she has. There should be similar
chatter about the near-death of the job listing.
Did you know? You can create a quick PDF version of your LinkedIn profile by clicking on the PDF link on your LinkedIn Profile.
Speaking of online brand identity, we've written many a post in the recent past were we touted the importance of using LinkedIn to build that professional brand of yours (Check out a couple, here and here). Based on similar themes, the WSJ piece mentioned how one could strengthen their expert status with LinkedIn Answers.
Become an Expert: Some websites offer a "Question and Answers" section and let visitors rate the answers. Here are a few: LinkedIn, Allexperts.com, and Yahoo! Answers.
I couldn't agree more with Shelly. As a blogger, I understand how time-consuming it can be to maintain a blog (one of the easiest ways to strengthen your professional brand online). However, with a few quick keystrokes answering questions or raising appropriate ones on LinkedIn Answers can help you solidify your professional brand with less investment of time. Try it.
And, finally a post that was one of the most widely read posts on "LinkedIn News", which chronicles our rising fortunes, post-CEO-Dan Nye's emergence. The article also delves into our growth numbers in Europe (particularly the UK) where we hit a million members in November 07.
In November the UK hit one million users. Invitations to join LinkedIn
from the well-connected have begun to arrive in people's inboxes, with
qualifiers like "I know this seems a bit naff but ..." The site now
claims to have 9 per cent of the professional workforce signed up and
boasts an executive from nearly every FTSE 100 company on its books.
That's it for this month. Stay tuned each week for the hottest news off the press in this series. Feel free to check out our archives for prior coverage.
This past year has seen the consolidation of the LinkedIn Blog as the source for all information about LinkedIn Features, Events, and LinkedIn News in general.
Here's a quick recap of the Top 5 most widely read posts on our blog this past year.
The first blog post written by Lucian Beebe attracted a lot of attention due to enhanced interest swirling around the launch of social networking platforms.
We recognize that there are literally hundreds of places and
ways to use your LinkedIn network in your professional life. APIs will allow you to literally “take your professionalnetwork with you” as you go through your work day, using your network on the sites you visit to get things done.
Steven Stegman describes a brand new features which happened to be one of the frequently requested feature. It was also one of the early blog posts that received traction on blog discussion sites like TechMeme.
This was an interesting product for us to design: as the profile owner,
we understand you'd like to see exactly who's viewed your profile, but
as a profile viewer, you want your privacy protected. We recently
figured out an elegant solution that works for everyone: instead of
showing you exactly who's viewed your profile, we'll show you some
interesting information about the users' industry or company background
without revealing their identity.
A post written by Adam Nash, following his presentation at Google.
LinkedIn is proud to be participating in this week's launch of Open Social, a new set of open APIs to allow developers to easily build and deploy social applications across the web. Open Social is only part of the larger story for LinkedIn about
leveraging the power of your professional network, both on and off the
LinkedIn site.
A follow-up to Lucian's earlier post on the API Opportunity. This post had Lucian elaborating on the themes he'd introduced in his earlier post, a few months ago.
Several months ago, we announced
we are working on APIs and a platform strategy for software developers
to integrate with LinkedIn and display their application within
LinkedIn. With the OpenSocial announcements,
you can now see a lot more about how you can write applications that
run inside LinkedIn. So, if you are a developer, what opportunities do
you now have?
This past week, saw a lot of press and blog attention showered on our most recent announcements; LinkedIn's redesigned home page (featuring LinkedIn News) and LinkedIn's Intelligent Application Platform. Given below are the highlights of that coverage (Top 5 from Press and Blog posts respectively):
LinkedIn said it wants to be a hub for business information.
"When
we look forward to 2008, we see people and professionals more and more
going beyond the connections and actually using LinkedIn to make
themselves more productive on a daily basis," said Adam Nash, senior
product director, in a video on LinkedIn's blog.
LinkedIn will open up
its service on Monday to outside software developers, starting with
BusinessWeek magazine, to transform itself from an online contacts and
referral database into an indispensable daily tool for business users.
Perhaps with that goal in mind, Mountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn is
rolling out a new look and new features today. LinkedIn will deliver
customized news feeds based on the company and industry in which a user
works and introduce applications to help professionals connect,
collaborate and share information, said Forrester Research analyst
Jeremiah Owyang.
As a better destination, LinkedIn would experience higher levels of
user engagement and more page views, which in turn would translate into
greater advertising revenue.
It's a sensible upgrade, building on LinkedInâs business focus. Over
time, LinkedIn will look more like a personal professional portal than
simply place to network with business associates.
LinkedIn's new features now put it a step ahead of the competition. In sum, LinkedIn is trying to cement itself as the center of business
networking by creating a set of features that make its large database
of business relations more valuable.
This is something we've been really looking forward to. There's so
much potential here. The coolest thing LinkedIn announced was the
Business Week Partnership
For a more in-depth chronology of blogosphere coverage, check out TechMeme's thread on the day of the announcement.
Wondering what announcements we made earlier this week? Here's a recap of all the announcements (with video interviews):
Another quick roundup from the world of social networking over the past few weeks. Before we get into the specific articles, many of you may have read the post by Adam Nash about LinkedIn's involvement in Open Social, and today we have a video of the LinkedIn Open Social presentation that Adam made at the Google Campfire event (04:30)
Here are three other topics that encompassed LinkedIn themes these past few weeks, starting off with a Nielsen Netratings' report that highlighted LinkedIn as the fastest growing social network:
1. Fastest growing social networking site | Fortune
The blogosphere gravitated towards a Nielsen Netratings report (via Fortune), which covered the fastest growing social networks (year over year). Here's a sampling of blogs on that topic:
While Facebook has been getting most of the attention of developers,
LinkedIn's involvement in OpenSocial with Google et al. will foster
creation of new application to help business folk advance themselves
and their companies.
Maybe it's my age (okay, yes it is my
age), but I prefer to keep my social circle focused on people who I
really know and do my socializing through email or on the phone with my
expanded circle of friends and colleagues.
2. LinkedIn CEOs Straw Poll | USA Today
Did you know that there are currently 145, 000 CEOs on LinkedIn. When polled on their political choices for Elections 08, here's what USA Today found:
None of the 154 CEOs who responded to USA
TODAY's survey said that they typically voted Democratic but intended
to vote Republican in 2008.
Still, Giuliani was the favorite. He also won in
a scientific survey of small-business owners by payroll-processing
company SurePayroll and a much larger unscientific survey of more than
2,000 CEOs by Vistage International, which says it's the world's
largest CEO membership organization. LinkedIn, which says it has
145,000 CEOs signed up, found Clinton in the lead in a small,
unscientific response.
Vistage allowed its CEOs to vote undecided, which carried the day with
37%, followed by Giuliani (21%), Romney (11%), Clinton (9%) and Obama
(7%). LinkedIn CEOs casting 446 votes online were 47% Republican and
44% Democratic. Of those, Clinton received 29% of the votes to 18% for
Giuliani and 16% for Obama.
3. International News | Telegraph and the Guardian
Here are a couple of articles featuring Reid Hoffman's trip to Europe, which covers the
His advice to entrepreneurs is simply: "actually go
and do it!". Websites are much cheaper now to build, he said, and once
you hit a 'spark', it can quickly turn into a forest fire. Base your
innovations on cultural needs and focus on adding new tools – "if you
don't add anything new, then – bang!".
And he should know – after leaving PayPal in October 2002, he assembled a team to start on LinkedIn in November.
"I
couldn't take a holiday", Mr Hoffman said, "Venture finance thought the
web was dead back then, but I thought networking sites were going to be
big.
"I wanted to go one step further: finance the social networking sites, and start building the professional networking sites."
LinkedIn
is now the largest professional networking site in the UK, with 1m
users. It has a high calibre of members too – senior executives for 96
of the FTSE 100 companies have their own LinkedIn profile pages.
In the US, all of the Fortune 500 companies have an executive level presence.
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman said that the discussion about a
new web bubble is usually too simplified. Costs of hardware, software
and bandwidth are all far less this time around, and the ad market
online is far greater. "There will be some trough and companies being
corrected, but relatively few. The pace of development is now so fast
that we're seeing the next wave of disruption starting before the last
has kicked in."
Some may view swag as being a unique part of Silicon Valley’s startup culture. But let’s face it, no matter where you work, a little swag goes a long way in building camaraderie, team spirit and your individual brand (much like LinkedIn helps with your professional brand). Starting today, you’ll be able to share the brand experience of LinkedIn whether it be wearing our custom-fitted tees or carrying LinkedIn Gear (ranging from backpacks, ballcaps and more). There’s something for everybody at the LinkedIn Store.
At LinkedIn we're proud of the people who are helping us build our business, which is why every "model" that you see in our store has a day-job helping LinkedIn succeed. Next to each photo you'll find a link. Click on it to learn more about the people who make LinkedIn great.
At LinkedIn, good business relationships get rewarded. We love our vendors and we love promoting them for their good work--like Paul Navabpour, whose promotional agency provided these top-quality products and helped us build this custom store, and photographer Dave Getzschman, whose magic makes our in-house talent shine.
Got a great idea for a product that we should offer our network? Or a color you'd love for a t-shirt? Leave a comment.
I've been wanting to publish the following two links on LinkedIn and social networking, but it's been a busy two days putting together the details for the upcoming LinkedIn Q&A event, featuring Daniel Lyons (Sr. editor at Forbes, faux blogger - "Fake Steve Jobs" and author of "Option$) and Guy Kawasaki (former Apple evangelist and founder at Truemors).
Thus far we've received roughly 250 RSVPs and since seating is limited, it may be a good idea to hurry up and RSVP over at event site Upcoming. And, now back to the post.
-- Here's a couple of quick posts and a podcast on International news from the LinkedIn world. This seems all the more appropriate since only recently we reached a million users in
the UK (read Liz's post here).
Liz O'Donnell (Director, International) participated in a recent panel discussion on the Scoop, a podcast series by Mark Jones, in an episode titled "The Business of Social Networking". Check out the podcast below which also features (besides Liz), MySpace Australia managing director Rebekah Horne, and
Technology Venture Partners principal Mike Zimmerman.
Finding a job through networking sites? Sounds familiar? And, this time the news is from India. Stanton Chase Vice President Asia-Pacific R Suresh, describes his recent conversion to LinkedIn and subsequent experience.
“In the last two-three
months, these networking sites have crossed the threshold. LinkedIn is
definitely a valuable tool. Something like the yellow
pages,” he says.
Stanton
Chase and indeed other executive search firms can no longer ignore the emerging
models for recruitment such as business and professional networking sites.
Recruitments at large, in some cases even CXO level recruitments through sites
such as LinkedIn and Ryze, have made search firms weave these into their
recruitment strategy.
It’s important to note that as you build your brand and reputation, you
take significant time to ensure integrity and accuracy. You never want
to Google your name and find that you are misrepresented by a blogger
or a comment on your Facebook wall. As you become a web worker, you
want to establish a daily means of checking your status. There are way
too many people that lose opportunities from what employers have seen
online
As we've outlined in prior posts, particularly the most recent one by Steve Patrizi, LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to get started on strengthening your online brand with a focus on your professional accomplishments:
Branding is something that we as professionals need to take
very seriously on an individual level. Ten years ago, Tom Peters penned an
article for Fast Company called “The Brand Called
You”, which stressed that it’s absolutely imperative for all professionals
to develop a unique and personal “professional brand” that communicates the
value they have to offer to prospective employers, employees, clients and
business partners.
* Is your public image a liability?
Liz Ryan, the Savvy Networker asks if your public image is a liability, once again draws attention to the importance and the value of your online brand:
A majority of employers now routinely check their job
candidates' MySpace, Linkedin and Facebook profiles for any impropriety, prior
to making an offer. Can you blame them? It's not so much that your prospective
employer worries about your keg parties or those photos of you with your
favorite bong. It's that they worry, with reason, about your judgment in
throwing these items online for anyone to see.
I'd like to once again draw attention to the above mentioned blog post by Steve Patrizi on how LinkedIn allows you to control that professional brand of yours most effectively:
That idea (of the "The Brand Called
You") was true then and it’s even more true
today. The major search engines and social networks have made all of us
far more accessible and visible than ever before, making it so much
more critical that we actively manage our own professional brands. And
that’s where LinkedIn really shines, allowing you to take control of
the major elements of your professional brand: the people you associate
with, the questions you ask and the answers you provide, the
recommendations you give and receive, and the way in which you express
your experiences and skills.
Have you begun nurturing your professional brand online as you do offline? Feel free to leave comments on how you've used LinkedIn to effectively strengthen your professional brand.
Last week, many of our blog readers may have noticed an interview with our CEO Dan Nye on New York Times' technology blog BITS, an acronym for Business. Innovation. Technology. Society. The interview and subsequent blog post by Saul Hansell, shed a little more light on our API plans, which we had blogged about a few months ago (Read Lucian Beebe's earlier post on the LinkedIn API).
Here's something to ponder:
So LinkedIn will have to approve any company that wants to tap into
its system. Mr. Nye says he is looking for two kinds of applications.
First, there are deals that enable LinkedIn members to tap into their
connections in other places, for example, while using applications like
Salesforce.com. Second, some applications will be allowed to add
features to LinkedIn’s own site. Mr. Nye offered, as an example, a
module connected to a trade show or conference that integrated travel
planning and other features. (Read entire article here)
As an adjunct to that post, Dan, is also answering questions posed by readers of the New York Times. The questions asked ranged from LinkedIn features like Groups, kudos, competition to tips on usage. Here's a snippet from Dan's response:
All (18 questioners so far) –
Thank you for your questions. I appreciate your interest in
LinkedIn, thank you for being members/subscribers and look forward to
addressing your issues and concerns about the service.
LinkedIn is a young company that is pursuing a big dream and big
idea. Our goal is to build a productivity tool to help professionals to
be the even better at what they do. We do this by helping people a)
present themselves in a professional way on the internet, b) find
people with unique skills, knowledge and experience, c) reach people
who can help them accomplish their goals, d) get advice from their
networks and LinkedIn at large, e) find opportunities, f) acquire new
clients/deals.
Of course, the underlying foundation of LinkedIn is the relationship
network built. However, it is the quality of the people, the user
generated content, utility of the applications and the breadth/quality
of content that make it useful.
I receive email and InMail messages daily from members who write to
express their excitement about the service. I hear stories about
members finding friends and colleagues they haven’t spoken to in
decades, entrepreneurs who find business partners, professional service
providers acquiring new clients through the Services recommendations,
recruiters who find candidates, companies who find talent, members who
find the “perfect job”, line managers who are amazed by the quality of
the advice they receive from the Answers area or a decision they made
after conducting an “off-line” reference check…etc.
While these positive stories and comments are rewarding, we are well
aware that LinkedIn can be improved and that many members haven’t yet
discovered the power of the service. For those of you who fall in to
that category, I assure you that we are working very hard on features
and product designs that I think you will love.
With this as background, I will respond to your questions as follows (For the rest of the responses, please check out the New York Times blog post here)
If you were to pick just one blog post from our blog to read per week what would it be: a product post, a hot topic post, a LinkedIn Answers post or our weekly LinkedIn News post. The LinkedIn News Roundup is a succinct summary of the press and blogosphere headlines on LinkedIn that surfaced on the web this past week. Take a stroll through this week's 5 highlights and click through to read the posts:
The 37 Signals blog features a post called "Screens around town", which shines the spotlight on web designs of popular websites based on reader reviews:
Dan Martell writes: “I was impressed with the way LinkedIn displayed the contacts they had found in my old hotmail account, and how I could easily click to the left to narrow the view.”... (Read the rest of the blog post here)
A helpful blog post on how intra-office groups of employees and their employers can leverage LinkedIn to strengthen professional relationships:
Through social networking sites such as
LinkedIn, employees can leverage their friends' contacts to open doors
and find new opportunities. Employees are starting side businesses to
provide a cushion against losing their job or hating their job to the
point they want to leave.
The stigma of job-hopping has all but gone away. Good employees
have more choices because they are good. The question is what a leader
needs to do to nourish, lead and retain the best employees... (Read the rest of the blog post here)
As the "careerist" networking site, we have always urged our users to take control of their professional brand by leveraging LinkedIn. This write-up by Joel Stein at TIME ponders the art of self-branding via social networking:
But really, these sites (social networking) aren't about connecting and reconnecting.
They're a platform for self-branding. Old people are always worrying
that our blogging and personal websites and MySpace profiles are taking
away our privacy, but they clearly don't understand the word privacy.
We're not sharing things we don't want other people to know. We're
showing you our best posed, retouched photos. We're listing the Pynchon
books we want you to think we've read all the way through... (Read the rest of the article here)
Regular readers of our blog must have found these earlier posts on finding gigs for consultants quite interesting (here and here). Here's a similar post that elaborates upon that theme:
The most widespread of them is probably LinkedIn, especially when it comes to business networking.
All of them are based on a simple idea: you know people, and they
know other people who might need your services. You’ve probably already
gotten a gig through a friend who knows a friend (and so on) in your
career. I know I have. Social networks make this even easier and offers
much more than just an introduction... (Read the rest of the article here)
PROBLEM: Receiving multiple invitations for LinkedIn but not understanding the service.
SOLUTION: Set up a free personal account on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), a professional-networking Web site, to meet other professionals or control e-mail invitations.
Click
on “Account and Settings” then scroll to “Receiving Messages.” Select
the “Invitations” category, where you can direct invitations to arrive
once a week or choose to read them only on the Web site.
You can
also upload a private contacts list that won’t appear online (use the
“Other Contacts” tab) and choose to receive invitations from only those
people. But you could miss introductions and professional opportunities
that might arise through other people.
CAVEAT: You
should generally receive invitations from people who already know your
e-mail address and LinkedIn users who attended the same school as you
or worked at the same company. Click on the “I don’t know this person”
button to report invitations that violate the rules. LinkedIn restricts
ability to send invitations of users reported too often.
Did you know that 20 of the 25 most influential people on the web have a LinkedIn profile?
The final selection of 25 individuals "who have had the biggest impact on the direction of the Web: past, present and future" was culled from nominations by both Business Week readers and editors. The annual selection for 2007 can be accessed through a slideshow here.
The Top 25 influential people on the web (Source: Business Week)
We're really excited that one of our co-founders and President of Products, Reid Hoffman, found mention on the list:
Hoffman may be the most well-connected person in Silicon Valley-and not
just because he's founder and chairman of online professional network LinkedIn.
A Marshall Scholar from Stanford and a philosophy major while at
Oxford, Hoffman was an executive at online payments service PayPal and
played a pivotal role in orchestrating the company's sale to eBay. An
investor in more than 60 companies including Facebook, Digg, and
Last.fm, Hoffman also is a director for companies including SixApart,
Kiva.org, and Mozilla.
Reid's next conference keynote is at the upcoming Graphing Social Patterns, held in San Jose, California between the 7th and 9th of this month. Reid will deliver the keynote on the "Business & Marketing Session" on Monday, 10/8/2007 at 9 AM (Pacific Time).
LinkedIn was also picked in Business Week's annual "Best of the Web" survey in the following categories: Social Networks and Jobs.
Did you know? Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, who also finds mention in the above-mentioned Business Week ranking, just recently asked a question on LinkedIn Answers on users' favorite Wikipedia find.
Feel free to answer his question or check out almost 600 answers to his question. You can also check out our blog post which highlighted some of the more interesting examples from among the answers.
Here's a quick roundup of all of last week's press coverage on all things LinkedIn. Most of it was related to our launch of photos in profiles but browse through some of the related LinkedIn coverage from the past couple of weeks:
* LinkedIn a photo: Most of you may have read about our most recent feature update - the ability to add a photo to your LinkedIn profile. Check out a step-by-step tutorial by Adam Nash, Sr. Director of Product.Also, check out the team behind the feature update.
Here are five related articles and blog posts that covered the topic:
PROBLEM: Receiving multiple invitations for LinkedIn but not understanding the service.
SOLUTION: Set up a free personal account on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), a professional-networking Web site, to meet other professionals or control e-mail invitations.
Click
on “Account and Settings” then scroll to “Receiving Messages.” Select
the “Invitations” category, where you can direct invitations to arrive
once a week or choose to read them only on the Web site.
You can
also upload a private contacts list that won’t appear online (use the
“Other Contacts” tab) and choose to receive invitations from only those
people. But you could miss introductions and professional opportunities
that might arise through other people.
CAVEAT: You
should generally receive invitations from people who already know your
e-mail address and LinkedIn users who attended the same school as you
or worked at the same company. Click on the “I don’t know this person”
button to report invitations that violate the rules. LinkedIn restricts
ability to send invitations of users reported too often.
What is LinkedIn, you ask? While one of the distinguishing
characteristics of Web 2.0 is the advent of social networking sites
like MySpace, you and I know that the demographic cut of the MySpace
and Facebook crowd is younger than we are, generally speaking. Enter
LinkedIn. It is a networking site for professionals, businesses and
entrepreneurs.
When you join LinkedIn, you create a profile that summarizes your
business accomplishments. You then use that profile to locate
colleagues, clients, associates, and friends. These folks become part
of your LinkedIn network. But the best part is that because your people
have their own network, your network expands geometrically to include
your connections' connections, linking you to thousands of qualified
professionals.
Let's say you need a lead with a business. Well it just may be that
within your expanded LinkedIn network, you will have that lead. Once
you create your network, and you look someone up, say, Barack Obama,
their profile will say
• "See who you and Barack Obama know in common" • "Get introduced to Barack Obama" • "Contact Barack Obama"
It's sort of like that parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Within your network, or expanded network, you never know who you might know.
But such checking can work to a job seeker's advantage, too. Chandan
Mahajan says his LinkedIn profile -- which lists his previous work
experience, displays eight recommendations from former colleagues and
shows that he has more than 100 connections online -- helped him land a
job in May as a business-development manager for Wipro Technologies,
the global information-technology-services business of Wipro
Ltd. The recruiters at Wipro "did say there were a couple of people
they knew in my network," says Mr. Mahajan, 28 years old, of East
Brunswick, N.J.
Wipro Technologies confirms that it contacted some of Mr. Mahajan's
connections after the first interview. "We did every informal reference
check," says Madhulika Goel, the company's manager of strategic
resourcing. In fact, Wipro didn't ask him for a standard résumé during
initial interviews, opting instead to use Mr. Mahajan's online profile.
Here are two more articles on reference checking from the Wall Street Journal:
Besides the Tech Entrepreneurship initiative, here's a slew of news snippets on all things LinkedIn - from the Wall Street Journal to the latest Nielsen/NetRatings for the month of August 07.
Ben Foster, a product manager at a Web-marketing firm
in California, changed jobs after getting a message on LinkedIn from a
recruiter who'd seen his profile.
Approximately 200,000 corporate and search-firm
recruiters belong to LinkedIn, which has more than 13 million members
in total, according to a spokeswoman.
Many networking sites for business professionals
charge membership fees. But most also offer free access to basic
features so you can determine if joining is worthwhile.
LinkedIn takes a completely different approach from the other two.
With its 14 million members, it is a great way to broaden your
professional network. It started in the Bay Area, where the majority of
its members are, but is spreading worldwide.
With
LinkedIn, you can find contacts inside companies at places like
Microsoft or Intel easily. That's why many people pay $20 a month to
get more privileges (such as being able to invite more people
simultaneously) that go well beyond the free version.
Each month, I get a fun little e-mail from Nielsen/NetRatings, the
online division of the big-name metrics firm, with some tracking
numbers for unique visitors at social media sites--namely, social
networks, blogs, and video-sharing sites. They're pretty anecdotal as
far as traffic metrics go, but it's still fun to see who's losing and
who's gaining--you know, like sports. And each month, I eagerly open
the e-mail (no, really) to see if there are any juicy surprises in
store.
15 quick ways to give value and make a positive impression - #12. Answer their questions on LinkedIn or Yahoo Answers. Being able to answer someone’s question in a timely manner definitely adds value.
One of the challenges of being an independent web worker is offering all of the services that your clients want. Here are five ways to find those potential partners:
1. Work your Social Networks. Yes, there’s
actually a reason you joined Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the
rest. If you put out the word that you’re in need of help with HTML
design or Rails programming or anything else, it’s likely that the
network will get you to the right person eventually.
Another week, and another roundup of related press and blog items that discuss LinkedIn and professional networking in general. This week we've got some great articles that range from USA Today's dissection of LinkedIn's growth to the Washington Times that talks about professional networking in general. Given below are five appropriate news pieces, links to the articles and quotes from the articles themselves:
