LinkedIn a Box
Over at new b5 blog, LinkedIntelligence, Scott Allen is hosting a group blogging project about LinkedIn. The idea is that bloggers write posts about cool, interesting and productive ways in which they’re using LinkedIn. Scott’s got some nice prizes lined up as well. (note: Scott is co-author of an excellent book about online networking which I reviewed here)
I don’t really have any original uses for LinkedIn…I mainly draft off of other smart people (hat tip to Guy). However, a while ago I ran into a cool little utility called LinkedInABox. Rather than display the standard LinkedIn button (see that over there on the right sidebar), you can use this tool to create a cool interactive menu-like display of your LinkedIn data. Here’s mine:
The nice thing about this is that it pulls your LinkedIn information outside the walls of LinkedIn and onto pages that you can control. One of the obstacles I’ve experienced in using LinkedIn is that while there’s plenty of opportunity to gather solid information about your career, your testimonials from other, etc, aside from the personal page LinkedIn provides, there isn’t a good way to spread that information elsewhere. LinkedInABox has started to change that and while I’m not particularly fond of the format, I like that my data is more portable. It’d be nice to see more services that provide ways to widgetize our LinkedIn data. Shoots, LinkedIn ought to be doing this.
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POSTED IN: career, communication, marketing, tips and tricks, web/tech
6 opinions for LinkedIn a Box
Phil Gerbyshak
May 6, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Very interesting tool Bren. I put this up on my site too, so we’ll see what thoughts this brings from others.
And I agree with you: LinkedIn should be doing something like this, or even cooler, where you could customize things even more.
CarlenLea
May 7, 2007 at 5:52 am
Okay — that’s a pretty sweet widget. How come yo don’t have it on your site, other than this post of course?
Bren
May 7, 2007 at 6:51 am
@CarlenLea: it is cool, but it’s kinda big, and I’ve already got too much crap cluttering up the sidebars as it is! :-)
Katherine Radeka
May 8, 2007 at 6:34 am
Has anyone here seen any true business benefit to using Linked In?
CarlenLea
May 8, 2007 at 6:59 am
I actually have. I’ve had a couple of interesting business opportunities come up since I started using it. I think you have to either (a) really make the effort to use the answers section or (b) be looking for a job for it to have serious value right now.
Bren
May 8, 2007 at 6:59 am
@Katherine: I guess it depends on what you mean by true business benefit. I’ve connected in new ways with people I know in real life, I’ve expanded my network of people I’ve worked with online and, just like in “real life” networking, I’ve tried to dig my well before I was thirsty.
I suspect, though, that you’re looking for something concrete–a deal that was made, or a job that was landed because of LinkedIn. Neither of those have happened to me. The closest I’ve come is using my network to connect with a local firm to see if it’s a place I might like to work someday. That worked out well and I made some new connections because of it.
For more concrete examples, shoot a note over to Scott Allen–I’m sure he’s got plenty of stories.