LinkedIn is a "social networking" web site. That's "fancy techie talk" for a web site which allows you to make and maintain connections with others who use the same web site.
You can put some information about yourself into LinkedIn and then invite others to "connect" with you. Once you're linked to others, you can (with permission) get introduced to their contacts, and to their contacts' contacts, and so on.
I have only 196 contacts listed in LinkedIn right now (I usually try to keep it to people I actually know or people who have been specifically recommended to me). My contacts have a collective 23,100 contacts. And my contacts' contacts have a collective 1,494,100 contacts. Amazing.
One of our enterprising program managers, in partnership with LDS Employment Services, created a group in LinkedIn called LDS Connected. If you follow this web site, you can affiliate yourself with the group. This means that when people search the group "LDS Connected" they will find you. Currently about 411 people have joined the group. I suspect this number will go much higher once word gets around.
Was this hard to get approved by the Church? Were there many roadblocks and concerns with "security" and "privacy?"
ReplyDelete[Joel: This isn't an official Church thing. If people want to "opt in" and identify themselves as LDS in LinkedIn, they have that option.]
[...] Blog Post from Joel Dehlin Chief Information Officer for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [...]
ReplyDeleteA nifty aspect of the group is that only people who are part of the group can see that you are part of the group. I'm not sure what the advantage of this is, but I assume it will come to me.
ReplyDeleteHi is the church fully supporting this program.
ReplyDelete[Joel: Hello Roberta. No, the Church is not officially supporting LinkedIn. This is an optional tool people may use to identify themselves as LDS within LinkedIn.]
Joel, I've been using Linked-In for quite a while and find it a great professional resource to keep in touch with former colleagues and to extend my network. I would like to see the group identity show up so that even those who are not members of the group can see it. I *want* others to see the logo and ask about it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the new Newsroom website is awesome. I loved the online press conference and loved being able to watch the press conference today from between general conference sessions. It added so much to be able to see and hear President Eyring and Elder Cook explain more about their callings and respond to the media. Well done.
[...] couple of weeks ago, I blogged about an unofficial LDS group in LinkedIn called LDS Connected. We’re now up to 749 [...]
ReplyDeleteJust found you. What a great resource! I'm a sales manager at my company and was thinking just today that I'd like to see if I could find some qualified LDS people to bring in. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDelete