Online Currents, (2007) Volume 21, No 6, March 2007

There is an art and science to networking, whether it’s online or in the physical world. Linkedin (www.linkedin.com) is an online social networking site for professionals that can assist in the science of making connections, but there’s still the art to master.

Linkedin is a cross between a people search site and a social networking site.  While anyone can search for the public profile of registered subscribers, making contact to Linkedin users relies on a network of Linkedin colleagues. Based on the adage of six degrees of separation, users can contact other Linkedin subscribers through a network of connections that are described as 1st degree (people you know personally), 2nd degree (network of contacts your 1st degree contact knows), and 3rd degree (extended potential network of contacts that you may connect with through mutual connections).

For many users the networking potential of Linkedin is under utilised, and anecdotally, the experience of Linkedin users is mixed. In researching for this article, colleagues that are Linkedin users remarked that they weren’t using the site to its full potential, or didn’t see the benefit of it. Other colleagues were full of praise, and for example, had used Linkedin to locate potential new board members for an organisation.

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