I’ve been a user and fan of LinkedIn since early 2003, shortly after its launch (I was member #2,369). It has since grown to almost 7 million members, making it the world’s largest virtual business network.
I believe that much of the reason for that growth is that LinkedIn does, overall, a very good job of delivering on its promise of being an efficient, time-conservative way of maintaining and leveraging your network of contacts. While you can certainly spend a lot of time there if you so choose, it has a strong appeal to busy professionals who understand the value of their network and want to be of service to the people they know and trust, but don’t want to spend a lot of time “networking”.
What I realized recently is that while there are dozens of excellent resources for the more highly active LinkedIn power users, there wasn’t really a source that delivered information with the same kind of efficiency that appeals to the majority of LinkedIn users.
So that’s what I’m hoping to create here. I monitor major news sources, blogs and a number of LinkedIn-related discussion groups and try to separate the wheat from the chaff, just giving you the focused information you need to make better use of LinkedIn. I’ve set up categories so that you can keep up with just the kind of information you’re looking for.
I’ll be adding features to this site constantly and will announce as I do. I’ll also soon be offering LinkedIn educational events. Stay tuned to this space for more! I especially welcome your comments, links from your blog, etc.
I’d like to make a special thanks to Konstantin Guericke of LinkedIn, Vincent Wright of MyLinkedInPowerForum, Liz Ryan of WorldWIT, and my coauthor David Teten for their support and encouragement in the creation of this site.
[...] From the welcome message: I believe that much of the reason for that growth is that LinkedIn does, overall, a very good job of delivering on its promise of being an efficient, time-conservative way of maintaining and leveraging your network of contacts. While you can certainly spend a lot of time there if you so choose, it has a strong appeal to busy professionals who understand the value of their network and want to be of service to the people they know and trust, but don?t want to spend a lot of time ?networking?. [...]
Scott,
Big congrats on Linked Intelligence!
The site looks good, clean, and well laid out.
As a long-time fan of your networking philosophy and your approach to using Linkedin, in particular, I look forward to learning from what you do, here.
Thanks!
Vincent Wright
http://www.MyLinkedinPowerForum.com
Hi Scott
This is a great initiative !
I am also an early member of LI… # 18,770
You’re the best person to author this blog …
One suggestion, it would be great if you can get folks like Vincent and Bill Vick to guest blog here sometimes !
Thanks all for the support. Now I just have to figure out why these comments didn’t go straight through – they should have!
My congratulations on your launch my friend. I welcome you to link and blogswap with “Six Degrees from Dave”
I really like your layout and I am looking forward to reviewing your inputs.
My one piece of advice is simple: WE SHARE a love for Linkedin. That being said it is incumbent upon us to critique and suggest enhancements to improve the brand and the technical functionality of this fantastic contribution by Konstantin … and hopefully, as in the case of all other great businesses, he considers and adopts the suggestions of his most loyal customers … like us.
http://www.sixdegreesfromdave.com
Thanks, Dave! Yes, I have a list of desired enhancements, some of which I’ve been asking for for years. I’m going to do a post about those soon, too. FYI, my top three are:
1. Strength of relationship indicator – This would solve much of the incessant debate about linking practices and would give LinkedIn (and its users) an intelligent way to choose from many introduction paths.
2. Ability for 1st degree contact to choose introduction route – Often the first person in the chain may have multiple possible routes to the recipient, but LinkedIn selects it automatically. The person making the referral should be able to choose the path.
3. Proactive introductions – It’s such a basic networking practice. It would help LI members be proactive rather than just reactive.
Like I said, I’ll do a whole post about this – probably a “top 10″ soon.
Scott,
Great idea, I am adding this blog to my reader, in addition to your Online Networking blog.
Your #1 enhancement request, Strength of relationship indicator, is something I am really looking forward to. There are LOTS of people I meet these days – they come to my teleseminars, request my newsletter, etc – that I might not know well enough to be able to recommend to others, but would still love to be connected to and keep in touch via LinkedIn. Some many become level #1 connections in the future, but I would love to have them on my list until then as well.
Biana Babinsky
http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/marketing/
This is an idea whose time has come. I am commenting about your blog on mine today. Good job! -Jim
[...] The trouble is that although my clients know that I’m a quasi-Luddite, they still ask me stuff (I hate not having anything at least quasi-intellignet to say), so I was more than delighted when Scott announced that he had launched a new site called Linked Intelligence. Along with Scott’s own deep understanding of LinkedIn, he’s drawing from knowledgeable people all over, people who really use LinkedIn to full advantage. [...]
Congrats and well started, I’ve hooked up the RSS link to my reader!-)
Congratulations Scott on the launch of LinkedIntelligence! What a great resource for LinkedIn users – I’m going to spread the word far and wide. A nice LI innovation that would help me tremendously would be a sticky-note or private text file for each contact. I have 1000+ contacts and apart from each person’s profile, I have no way to remember/catalog what I know about each one, how we met, etc….
cheers
Liz Ryan
WorldWIT
http://www.worldwit.org