linked101.com

A couple of weeks ago I talked with Vincent Wright who previously ran the MyPowerLinkedIn forum. He related that after years of evangelizing for LinkedIn he was asked to remove the reference to LinkedIn due to trademark infringement. At that point, I assumed that as a little fish the gotlinkedin.com domain was living on borrowed time.

Thus I bought this domain and begin planning the switch. Last week the email finally arrived asking me to cease and desist using the trademarked LinkedIn in my domain. Now, even though I think there is no possibility anyone would confuse my site with LinkedIn, I understand the reasoning behind LinkedIn enforcement of trademark law.

If they fail to protect their name now, it could be harder to do so in the future. So immediately I stepped up the conversion process. The first thing I did was hit “reply” to the email to inform them that I would do as they asked. Unfortunately the email bounced back, saying there was no such email.

So even though they asked me to respond to the email, I have yet to find a way to communicate my compliance, other than to place a blank page up on gotlinkedin.com to allow folks the opportunity to go to the LinkedIn site or to my blog.

So if you’re wondering why yhe name and domain name has changed, there you go. And with the domain name change, my linkedin book name has be changed as well to “LinkedIn 101“.

I try to read as many LinkedIn blogs each week.  It’s getting harder as some of the best are disapearing.  My favorite, LinkedIntelligence stopped posting on a regular basis about a month ago.  MyPowerLinkedIn forum no longer covers linked in the same, as it was asked to stop using the word LinkedIn as part of the name.  These are sites that talked and evangelized LinkedIn well before it was cool to the masses.

There are still a few that are worth reading…Imonlinkedinnowwhat, The Executives Guide to LinkedIn, The LinkedIn User’s Manual, and of course LinkedIn’s own blog.

I would expect that LinkedIn would use their blog to communicate with their 22 plus million users, but instead it seems to be aimed at developers and people in the tech industry. I get the feeling that it’s more important to them to talk about how cool they are in using the latest technologies that the average user could care less about.

Us users want to know how to use the site better, how other people are benefitting from LI, and what are you working on that will help us network better and grow our businesses. Every now and then a post touches on a user oriented topic, but they are few and far between. We don’t care what conference you recently presented at or how your interns first day was.

At a minimum, if LI is using their blog to shine their image with the tech and venture world, then they should create a second blog that is dedicated to it’s users. The techies and venture folks may be what pays the bills, but the users are what establishes the value.

Jason Alba recently wrote a post talking about recommendations and made some good points. You can read his full post by clicking here.

Having read his post I started looking at recommendations in the Service Providers section (Service Providers used to be a main category, but is now listed under Companies). The most important thing in a recommendation is its authenticity. Truthful recommendations add value. Misleading or false recommendations subtract value. Also of equal importance is the basis for the recommendation which can be one of the following:

1. Colleague: You worked together
2. Service Provider: You have a pay for service or product relationship
3. Business Partner: You have worked with but not while at the same company

The best recommendation is as a Service Provider.  These recommendations are what gets you listed in the Service Providers directory. 

As I was reviewing some of the top people and their recommendations I came across someone who was listed as the 2nd most recommended person.  Here are a couple of the recommendations:

“I’ve only known XXXX for a few weeks. In that time he has referred many projects to me and offered to make some introductions to a contact of mine.  In my experience it is rare to come across such an enlightened individual and even rarer for the person to be an YYYYYYYY. If XXXX treats all of his clients like he treats me then I highly recommend him to anyone in search of a great YYY professional.”
 hired XXXX as a YYYYYYYY in 2008

“I’ve met with XXXX on different occasions , his professionalism and his knowledge on our matters, were always consistent. His work ethic and personality is very reliable and incomparable.”
hired XXX as a YYYYYYYYY in 2008

“XXXX was one of my students in business school. He worked on a strategic analysis project with two other students. The project was executed so well that I am still sharing this today with my current students as a benchmark of the quality, thoroughness, analysis and execution that I expect. XXXX was a great team leader and as you would expect, his analysis was excellent. I highly recommend him. He is an asset to any project.”
hired XXX as a YYYYYY in 2003

The basis for each recommendation above is as a Service Provider.  Maybe I’m being picky, but none of the recommendations appear to be based on someone having provided a service.  They appear to be recommendations of character which would be either as a colleague or business partner.

The classification doesn’t change the authenticity of the recommendation but the recommendations do appear to be mis-leading.  They help this person appear higher than others who are relying on actual Service Provider recommendations to rank in the Service Providers section.  If everyone did the same, there would be no value in looking at the Service Provider directory.

I can’t say definitively that this person was not hired by the people making the recommendations, which is why I have eliminated any personal references.  Just keep in mind that when giving and accepting recommendations that you either add to the Service Providers directory value, or subtract from it. 

I’ve stated often that LinkedIn is simply a tool that you can use to enhance your networking and grow your business, but alone it is simply an interesting application. By itself you can definitely conduct a successful job search. You can gain insightful information through the Answers section. You can even build credibility through generating Recommendations. All are positive outcomes.

From a networking perspective, though, the average person is not likely to experience success on any scale if LinkedIn is their sole method. Many people connect, not many monetize their connections. To do that requires that you build relationships, and most relationships require some face-to-face time. It’s not necessary that the face-to-face come first. In fact LinkedIn can be a tool that jump starts your face-to-face networking.

For the first year and a half in my chamber I met many people, had countless cups of coffee, and some of those people could actually remember what is that I do for a living. Six months ago I started using LinkedIn to enhance my chamber networking and today I know 10 times as many people in my chamber and that many know me. A larger percentage who remember what I do.

LinkedIn keeps me in touch with my network. On my LI home page I see who is connecting, see what they are currently working on, and have a quick reference if I am ever unclear as to what an individual does and how they can help me or one of my client’s.

Las Friday I sat down with Ron Sklamm who I did not meet at the chamber event that he attended. After the event I went through the copy of business cards that everyone gets to see who attended that I was not already connected to. Ron’s card was on the list and I invited him to connect based on what he does. Within a couple of days we set a time to meet.

We had a good conversation and there are some definite opportunities that we may be able to work together down the road. More than likely it will be a couple of months before that happens, but in the mean time LinkedIn will allow me to stay connected to Ron.

Ron told me that he likely will not join the chamber so I will not see him on an ongoing basis. Without first extending the connection invite, it is likely that we would have never met. Using LinkedIn helped me enhance my networking. It’s helping me extend my networking. But, without that face-to-face meeting, he would just be a name on a list.

If you have people that you are connected to that you have not met, you are wasting opportunity. If there are people you did not meet an event use LinkedIn as a way to do so. When I look at some of my most recent client’s it’s getting harder to determine whether or not it was the Chamber or LinkedIn that helped create the success. Likely, it is a combination of both.

Did the chicken or the egg come first? I don’t care, as long as a new client hatched I’m ok with either.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I released the Linkerator.  The Linkerator let’s you grade your presence on LinkedIn in a numerical manner.  The scoring goes from 0 to 100 and takes about 30 seconds to complete.

As of today the average score is 49.3. (If you’re wondering, my score which is not the highest, is an 83). 

There are four areas that you can score up to 25 points:

1.  Profile
2.  Answers
3.  Recommendations
4.  Contacts

This is not an exact science, only a way to judge yourself against the average LinkedIn user based on my criteria.  Someone else creating a similar application would likely have a different scoring model.  It’s not meant to be anything other than fun. 

When you submit your answers it will return the average to date score and will include recommendations on how you could improve your score.  Ways to improve your score include creating a better profile, asking and answering more questions, giving and receiving more recommendations, and connecting to more people.  These are the very things you should be doing to enhance your online brand. 

To score yourself go to www.gotlinkedin.com/review.html