The Global Human Capital Journal

Helps Busy Executives to Tap Growing Online Professional Network

March 18, 2007, Chicago, USA—Today, The Global Human Capital Journal released its Review and The Unofficial LinkedIn User's Guide to aid executives and professionals to mine the hidden value of the rapidly growing website. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn is a leading "social" network site for managing business relationships. It currently has over nine million global members who collaborate for professional purposes.

LinkedIn represents a transformation opportunity for the Global Human Capital Journal's executive readership. Business and government leaders can significantly increase their ability to execute strategy by leveraging emerging peer to peer knowledge networks. Notably, an executive's LinkedIn network is beholden to no employer and can increase mobility.

How to Increase Your Payback from Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a "social" site that will prove to be of rare benefit to business executives and professionals in building individualized collaborative networks, as I explained in detail in the GHCJ Review of LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn is seriously lacking in providing a step-by-step guide to help the motivated executive to tap its real value. The functionality of the website is easy to use, but many of the finer points of LinkedIn are lost on the majority of users. This guide attempts to address that.

The "Unofficial User's Guide" is divided into two parts: The Basics and Advanced Techniques. If you are at the point of deciding whether LinkedIn could be useful to you, I urge you to read the Review of LinkedIn first. This guide is a hack and makes no claim to be extensively studied or ultimately comprehensive, but I have striven to make it immediately useful. I will undoubtedly update it, as I become aware of additional features and techniques.

My motivation for writing it is to increase understanding of LinkedIn's incredible potential and to hasten adoption among senior executives and professionals. (For an update on motivations, please see comments below).

Valuable Space to Create Your Professional Knowledge Network

LinkedIn is a social network website that enables people to build and manage (mostly) business connections in order to discover jobs, ventures, new clients, etc. Unlike other social networking sites, its focus is business rather than social or entertainment.

LinkedIn is emerging as a dominant networking environment for executives and professionals, and its development will be of interest as both an immensely practical tool and as a study of the social network phenomenon. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn crossed the chasm in 2007, as the company reports that thousands of people are joining per day. Today, it has more than 9 million members, and membership is very global.

As valuable as LinkedIn is, one of the company's weakest points is making itself approachable to executives. For example, I recently attended an Illinois IT Association Sales Round Table at which attendees represented a broad range of executives, IT management and professionals and were no strangers to developing relationships and business development. Presenter Steve Weinberg gave an excellent presentation on LinkedIn's potential and features. Listening to the interaction of the at-capacity crowd, I was impressed by the lack of knowledge in the room, including my own.

Therefore, I decided to put LinkedIn under the microscope. I investigated its methods for enabling networking while protecting privacy, and I delved into its tools and methods. I wanted to assess whether it was ready for prime time for the time-pressed business and government leaders I know. I conclude that LinkedIn is an extremely useful tool, and most professionals and executives will benefit significantly by using it.

Achieves Payor of Last Resort Status

Chicago, 13 March 2007—Today, the Global Human Capital Journal awarded StaySmall, the global payment intermediary, the odious Web 0.2 Citation for inducing a poignant bout of customer yechsperience™.

As readers know, the GHCJ exercises stringent criteria before conferring the Web 0.2 Citation: to earn it, companies must induce prolonged feelings of frustration, confusion and anguish in customers more effectively than their competitors.

Tonight, StaySmall delivered in spades, as reported by the judges. Here is a summarized account of the findings...

Web 2.0 Is Transforming Relationships Between Customers and Companies*

I'll risk using a hype-laden term like "Web 2.0" in the title: I think most of us have been around long enough to understand that hype doesn't mean that nothing is there, although it can distract us from seeing things that we should be watching.

I have been in the thick of the "adoption curves" of Java, e-business transformation and SOA/Web services (detail). They have been instrumental in creating a new information infrastructure and business process capabilities. "Web 2.0" will prove to be the most transformational so far because it is changing relationships. It changes individuals' relationships with each other, and it will change how companies and the customers relate to each other. It will demand "Marketing 2.0."