I hope to make connections with great entertainment content creators the world over and bring some together in a cohesive effort to reshape and remake the entire industry in a less tainted, more equitable outlet that allows for unprecedented , unencumbered creativity from a wider pool of artists.

Sincerely,
New Friend in the “Linkedin” block.

Now that I am employed I am struggleing with how to use linked in to network for business. I want to respect the fact that most people are not on linkedin to be sold to. However, I can’t help but think that there are those out there who would like to know about what my company does and how it can help them.

I would love to know how others have non invasively used linkedin to market their businesses and had success.

Regards,
Larry

sometimes its difficult to get connected with someone whom uu would want to be in your professional connection list.

- The most challenging thing for me is to get recommandation from my former employee, because it was 10 years ago my last job took place in Shanghai, and now I live in Denmark,so it is a bit difficult.

For me, there’s really only one: to find a job. After a surprise layoff followed by a grieving period, LinkedIn was suggested by a colleague. As an internet professional, I never approached LI probably because I had no desire for any more social bandwidth in my already full life. Now that the balance is shifted, it has become an essential tool in networking, which is not a necessarily a plus for internet professionals like myself who, like moles, tend to stay within the confines of their day-to-day tasks.

What are the main things you find challenging?

Networking is challenging or my concept of networking is challenging so maybe I’m reading more into it than is necessary. Back in the salad days networking meant having a steady job and hanging out with your peers to talk about the industry, complain about such and such, and poke fun at recent grads and each other.

But how have the rules changed since then? Have online social networking, while opening the playing field, really helped anyone? I don’t know the answer to that. And to prove the irony is not lost on me, I’m in the internet business. Now *that’s* challenging.

Just a quick note to another earlier poster, JP – Don’t be afraid to post a technical question for fear that a colleague or competitor will think less of you. I’ve always lived by the maxim, “The only stupid question is the one that is not asked.” It takes an intellectually mature person to admit they don’t know something and ask for help. I’d think less of you if you DIDN’T ask about something you wanted to understand better. Besides, anyone who would judge you based on that criterion is a fool, and who cares what fools think?

I hope this post isn’t too long – I’m fairly new to the blogosphere, and I’m still learning the etiquette. My apologies if my reply runneth over…

Jim Whitaker

I think I’ve been using Linkedin in the following order:
- Just to keep my contacts, I guess I started before the hype, about 3 years ago. Even business partners who at that moment didn’t believe in such online networks are now convinced that they should be in it. It remains definitely a usefull tool to keep in touch business wise with people who you’ve worked with.
- When more business relations got on it and more features appeared I started using those features like Groups, in this case the Componence Community. Many people from our units became a member, but I must admit that the usage of the available applications is poor. This is probably because we have a strong corporate wiki where all our people, clients and partner work in.
- About a year ago I really started to use Linkedin to do research about technical topics, of which I thought my developers were taking too much time to take some decisions. Please read http://hhvo.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/it-managers-let-the-web-20-help-you-to-make-faster-decisions-and-save-money-on-pocs-and-long-investigations/ for more details.
- Besides that I found out that the ‘technies’ on Linkedin were very helpful, as many technical questions received good answers. I’ve met and eventually got to know the leading committers and even the founders behind ‘Apache Wicket’. For more details, please read http://hhvo.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/linkedin-wicket-a-nice-way-to-bring-people-together/
- I’ve tried answering questions etc. for a while, to see if I could get into the top rankings, but it seems that there are too many people who are a lot better in it than I am. Although I do not mind to spend time to give good answers, it took out the fun and competitiveness when I saw that I didn’t stand a chance.
- So I started to ask more questions myself and used Linkedin as a research tool. During the time where I was trying to find out different Web 2.0 tools that could be useful for Componence to increase the ‘Enterprise 2.0′ level within our company. I’ve even asked around what Web 2.0 people used as Research platforms, but Linkedin was not mentioned. You can read more about it on http://hhvo.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/web-20-why-isnt-linkedin-mentioned-as-a-research-tool/
- Since a month or 2 I’ve found out the integration with different apps, for which I was waiting for a long time. I’ve now included my WordPress blog into it and started to use Tripit because of it. My next step should be to use slideshare to profile my solutions better. I’m still wondering why the Twitter integration is not available.
- And since the past few weeks I’ve been using Linkedin to get sales leads. Through some web analysis I qualify some companies I’d like to target, after that I try to find the CEO’s /CTO’s / CIO’s / Head of Online / IT managers who might have an interest in my solutions. I’ve been mailing about 15 inmails since and from it I have 3 positive replies to get in contact, 20%, that’s not bad I think. This made me increase my existing subscription on Linkedin, because I eventually ran out of Inmails.

I hope my comments are of use to you. And about the look & feel of our blogs, that’s just a coincidence.

Cheers,

Ha Vo
http://hhvo.wordpress.com

2) If I’m interested in networking to help me understand a problem I’m facing at work, I don’t want to put that out there publicly as a question because (a) my colleagues will see it and know that I’m confused/uninformed/worried/etc and (b) my competitors will know the same thing.

3) I would like to share more information with people about what I’m working on and hear more about what they are working on. I am not a “trained expert” but I do have a variety of experiences and skills that I would be more than happy to discuss with others. Since my role is a unique one within my organization, I would find it enjoyable to interact with other people in my same (or similar) role in other organizations.

- John

I try and do that by participating in groups, asking questions and asking for connections.

The main challenge is time and knowledge. I believe that with more knowledge I will have more time.

Another challenge is that there are many networks to join, and I am perhaps on too many, it may be better to focus on one or two, I havent worked that one out yet !

Thanks for your blog :-)

Elton

The main problem is contacting so many people who may or may not be interested in business

Marsha Devine
Graphic Design & Multimedia Specialist
Adjunct Faculty: AIP Online Division, UOP Online, & Guam CC
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marshadevine

i am very new to linkedin so that cant say much more but i understand that linkedin is the first innitiative on internet to do organize business on Internet.

I agree with many people that have commented before me that learnin how to use LinkedIn is the most difficult part, not having hours to procrastinate papers apparently makes learnin new websites more difficult.

Thank you for having this forum, I’m sure it has provided a great deal of information to many people.

Nick

I work full-time in an HR Staff Training and Development area, I’m finishing up my undergraduate degree in Communication Studies and hope to embark on graduate school soon. All of this to say that I hope to meet and make many connections with people who have experience in different avenues of training/consulting and how it relates to HR. Also, I would like to find out more information from people in different types of HR backgrounds…specifically whether their department is with a company or a higher education institution. The two can be very different in their styles.

Any information is helpful — I know that I’ll be able to find invaluable information from others as well as collaborate with them through LinkedIn…I just need to learn what ways to do so. Thanks so much for your help.

Bridget