The
short answer is no, but it’s a start
Limitations
Firstly,
LinkedIn contains only information that a person is willing to reveal about
her/himself. Secondly, there is no indication of the quality of the
relationship between two people.
But
what about the degree of separation that is shown on LinkedIn?
This
actually only indicates the number of intermediates between you and your
target. If you are linked to someone on second degree, all this means is that
there is an intermediary person between you and your target. To reach someone
on third degree you need to go through 2 intermediaries.
For
people you are linked at second degree LinkedIn shows you the names of all
intermediaries that have a direct connection to your target. For people on
third degree the people listed have a direct connection to someone who in turn
has a direct connection to your target. However, the identity of this second
intermediary is not revealed.
So,
if you want to use the introduction functionality of LinkedIn, you are faced
with the question which intermediary you are going to ask to give you an
introduction to your target. Will you choose:
– An intermediary who owes you a favor?
– The intermediary you know best?
Already
from these two questions you can see that you need extra information to take a
decision which is not stored in LinkedIn: the quality of your links. Very often
though people have not documented this information in whatever tool they use to
keep track of their network, let alone on LinkedIn. Knowing the quality of the
link between you and your intermediary and ideally also having an indication of
the quality of the link between the intermediary and your target is crucial though
in order to judge the probability of success of your introduction request.
Alternative
Functionality in LinkedIn
Alternatively
you can choose the direct approach by asking for a connection. Depending on how
your target has set up the LinkedIn account you need to know the targets exact
e-mail address to do so. In this case, you might ask yourself what the use of
LinkedIn is. Would it not be easier to write the e-mail directly? Using
LinkedIn only makes sense if you hope to get access to the network of your
target.
Other
people have set up their account to accept connection requests based on
commonalities such as:
·
You are former colleagues having worked in
the same organization
·
You were class mates
·
You have done business together
·
You both belong to at least one LinkedIn
Group.
There
are some further criteria for which though you once again need to know the
exact e-mail address of the target.
Using
the direct approach, you eliminate the uncertainty about the quality of the
relationships between you, your intermediaries and your target. However, good
networkers know that the indirect access is more powerful than the direct
access. I personally have experienced this phenomenon even on LinkedIn.
Conclusion
Good
networkers know that they need an electronic tool to track their network. Although
I know of only one off-the-shelf system that allows you to track the quality of
links. The next best choice is to use a
tool that allows you to add custom fields to track relationship quality. In any
case, though, you will have to proactively assess and document the quality of
these links.
Although
LinkedIn cannot therefore be your choice for a primary tool to track your
network, it can be very useful to support your networking activities.
·
You can be reminded of people who fell off
the radar
·
You can find potential routes to a target.
It
will be much more effective if you use the telephone or other offline methods to
identify which of your potential intermediaries has the best quality relation
to your target. By doing so, you can also test the value message that you want
to transmit to your target, the second fundamental element for success to
expand your network. You then can also use the telephone to establish the
contact to your target.
If
you do not like the phone, you can use the same process with e-mails. Yet
remember, a network between people goes beyond having a list of names in the
form of e-mail addresses or aliases in a social network. It consists of
relations which are usually based on many differing and repeated interactions,
using all kinds of communication media to convey messages. Communication media
based on the written word use only 7% of the bandwidth available to humans
communicating. Communication media that allow the transmission of tone (e.g.
telephone or skype), add another 34% of bandwidth for your message to pass. The
remaining communication bandwidth between humans and, incidently, by far the
fastest channel is the exchange of non verbal signals (e.g. body language).
This level can only be fully reached through face to face contacts.
LinkedIn
can help you identify some possible routes to people, but without an indication
of the strength of links between its members.
To maximize the power of your network you will need, at some point, to
fill in and find a way of remember the gaps in the relationship information.
Christian
Maurer
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