Technology changes the way we work and continues to provide new ways to communicate and network.  These developments are especially useful in geographically spread out groups that seldom meet face-to-face, such as those of us that work with LIMS. One such tool is LinkedIn® (www.linkedin.com). In this part of my article on this tool, I’ll discuss what it is and how we might use it.

What LinkedIn®  Is and How it Works
The term “six degrees of separation” refers to the theory that all of us are linked to every other person by no more than six other “steps,” where a link to someone you know is the first step. Then, someone who he or she knows whom you don’t know is considered two steps away. LinkedIn® is an online business networking tool that employs this model. It goes out to three degrees.

To give an example, if I know five people (one step away), who each know five people (two steps away), then I have those initial five people who I know plus 25 people to whom “my five” could introduce me. If each of those people know five more people (three steps away), then there are another 125 introductions that could be made to me.

Initially, you can go directly to the LinkedIn® site and create an account for yourself. Some of you have probably seen invitations to join LinkedIn®, as well. An invitation is not necessary to get started. However, that is how you can directly invite people you know with whom you would like to link. Once you’ve linked with a few people you know, you can start requesting introductions to people they know.

Once you become a member, you can search for people using a variety of criteria. You need to justify your reason for the request, as any link along the way can refuse to pass the request along. Your goal is to make direct links with people. By doing this, you become eligible to link to the people to whom they’re linked, and those who are linked to these people, as well. The only caveat to this is that each person lists the types of connections they’re interested in, and some might not wish to link for this type of purpose.

I should add that there are different levels of membership. It’s wise to begin with the free membership to learn the tool and determine whether it’s useful for you. The free membership does restrict your networking ability, but provides enough capacity for many of us.

My own public LinkedIn® profile resides at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/geometrick

What We Can Do With This Tool
This tool is especially useful for finding people you’ve lost touch with, as well as for finding people who may have a business need for connecting with you. After I used this tool for a while, I realized that most of my links were people who were either in the LIMS industry or work with LIMS. I then started building my network so I would link to more and more LIMS-related people.

By creating such a network, we link to more people in the LIMS community. These people have knowledge and are willing—we hope—to answer questions, as LinkedIn® has question/answer functionality. We can look for consultants or for projects. It’s also a way to look for employees or for jobs.

Next
In Part II of the article, I’ll list some of the ways I’ve used this tool, as well as discuss how well it does or doesn’t replace similar tools.