Linkedin Blog

Many of you regular readers of the blog must have read my earlier post on a question asked by Yao Ming, starting center of the Houston Rockets, on whether “participating in sports made an important difference in your professional life.” Yao Ming has been pleasantly surprised by the response from LinkedIn users to his question. In his own words:

“I’d like to thank the LinkedIn users for taking the time to respond to my question. I appreciate your many thoughtful answers and would like to thank you for the kind words and good wishes. I hope you will continue to support the rebuilding efforts in China to help deserving children find schools where they can learn in safety.”

I have been working for LinkedIn for the summer. It has been a fantastic experience throughout, but today, it definitely reached a high point when I saw my sports hero and professional passion come together.

I’ve been a Yao Ming fan for the past ten years. One thing I can say is that while most athletes are self-promoting, Yao is all about others in need. Today, he is going high tech on LinkedIn.

Fifteen hundred LinkedIn users answered U.S Senator Barack Obama’s question on how the next president could help small business and entrepreneurs thrive. Since then he has become the Presidential Candidate of the Democratic party. In recent speeches Senator Obama has proposed a competitiveness agenda centered around “education and energy, innovation and infrastructure, fair trade and reform”.

Just earlier today, he posed his second question on LinkedIn Answers asking the 23 million professionals on LinkedIn what ideas they have to keep America competitive in the years ahead and in less than a day it has garnered over 400 answers.