Thursday, January 27, 2011

LinkedIn InMaps Visual Of Network


LinkedIn launched and pretty cool experimental feature showing the power of the data they collect called InMaps. The above picture is what my network looks like. Here's a key:

Orange = MBA classmates
Blue = Everyone else from my MBA program (Professors, students from other years, etc)
Yellow = Family
Pink = HP colleagues
Green = Everyone else

Overall, this is a sweet visual. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see most of my connections are from the MBA program. Where else do you get to know 50-100 people really well (church?... maybe) and who are actively interested in networking?

My activity on LinkedIn tends to ebb and wane. Most of the time I wait for people to connect with me, but every once in a while I get in the mood to connect and send out 15 invites within a couple days. I also tend to not ask for recommendations, but instead surprise people by freely giving them a recommendation.

What I need to improve upon is not just accepting those connection requests, but taking the time to follow up with a personal message asking how they're doing and offering to help in any way that I can (and giving a couple examples - write a recommendation, make an introduction, answer a question, etc.) That'll add more value to the connection by setting the precedent that this is more than a list of people I know. I do this for some connections, but I'm simply not consistent enough.

So with that, feel free to connect to me on Linkedin.
Or, make your own InMap.

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