Building your network. The right tool.

Nothing has ever been as important as right connections. Today, in the Internet era it's impossible to overestimate the meaning of networking. Everything is changing rapidly and you barely hope (but don't know for sure) what you will be doing in a couple of years and whom will be working with.  Fortunately there is a number of tools helping us to manage our connections and I want to share my experience on the one I particularly love - LinkedIn - since a few friends of mine were asking me about it when I tried to join them.

The idea of the tool is simple - build your profile (a kind of an on-line resume), join other people you met, and be a connector of your network. Very simple and very efficient.

Why do you need it, what benefits do you get from it? One may say that Outlook is sufficient to store all contact information. But in LinkedIn by putting your contacts to your network you, actually, establish a connection with alive people; whatever they change in their data becomes immediately visible and accessible to you. You link them to you as opposite to storing a snapshot of their profile in your Outlook.

You get additional means to manage the connections like "shared connections" or "added connections". The former lets you see other colleagues that you and your connection share so if somebody changes her data you have other common contacts to reach the person. The later allows you to see what other contacts your connection has recently added and you may want to add them as well if you know them.

To sing-up you need to make just a few clicks and your virtual incarnation is given birth. It has a number of mandatory fields such as locations, industry, and company. You can control visibility and accessibility of your user (and its data) but the mandatory fields are always available for searches.

This is, probably, the best feature of the system since it helps you to establish connections with people you don't know in person but have an opportunity to reach them via your common network. Let me demonstrate it to you on an example.  Suppose, I want to meet Keith Ferrazzi. I don't know him (yet) in person but it happens that he already has registered at LinkedIn. When I execute a search there I see that he's only 3 degrees form me: meaning I have somebody in my direct network who has somebody in her direct network who knows Keith in person! Of course, I can try to contact Keith directly (if I know his email) but with LinkedIn I see a way (or a few) to be introduced to Keith via people we both know! Guess what my chances are to be accepted. By the way, Keith has a great article on LinkedIn and he also promotes the system in his amazing book.

Another advantage of the tool (or, rather, another aspect of the very same advantage) is you can find people from your big network (2nd and 3d tiers) based on the mandatory fields (location, company, industry). Looking for somebody in a certain company? Just put its name to the advanced search. Seeking an insider's view for an industry you have nobody in - the same receipt. You can use the network for anything - it gives you always the same resul - builds a chain of trusted (read: personal) connections to the target.

People often ask me whom should they invite or whose invitation to accept. There were two polar ideas: only people you can recommend personally or anybody you happened to know, even virtually. My opinion is you should add anybody for whom you'll be feeling comfortable to serve as a connector between her and your network. At the end of the day it's free but you don't want, probably, to have hundred people in the network whose names tell you nothing. So be selective but not greedy.

Membership is free at LinkedIn for a basic profile but there are options to upgrade to professional service from the network. I think you need it only if you're in an active job seeking position and am very happy with the level of free membership.

Last comment is building a network takes time and right contacts is something you want to have ready right when you need it. So don't shelve it - register today!

Update: Guy Kawasaki has a great post on how to use LinkedIn

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