Interview of Jean-Bernard Chovet

Here are the views of Jean-Bernard Chovet.

i) What you like about Linkedin?

[Jean-Bernard Chovet] Great tool to find peoples.

ii) How does linkedin helped you?

[Jean-Bernard Chovet] First to re-cpnnect with peoples. I use it now to connect with new peoples.For business only

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain

[Jean-Bernard Chovet] Not really I could not find an increase of business but I saved time when Ineed to get in touch with company

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?
[Jean-Bernard Chovet] With company name I need to find and then I try to find someone I know.

v) Your thoughts on "Quality vs Quantity" connections?
[Jean-Bernard Chovet] 75% the tool is very good regarding company and peoples that are workingwithin.

Jean-Bernard CHOVET
Business Development Manager BT Infonet FranceTel: +33 1 41 16 10 41 Mob: +33 6 21 32 38 56 Fax: +33 1 41 16 10 30
E: jean-bernard.chovet@@fr.bt.infonet.com
www.fr.bt.infonet.com

Interview of Paul Melessen

Paul Melessen work as an independent consultant closely together with an international network of skilled consultants. Paul Melessen use on-line tools in many languages to assess culture and team effectiveness. This allows him to do international projects in a short timeframe.

i) What you like about Linkedin?
[Paul Melessen]
It is efficient and easy to use. And it is big. So it outperforms all other communities sheer size. An other thing I like is the no-nonsense business approach.

ii) How does linkedin helped you?
[Paul Melessen]
It really has helped me in finding experts on various subjects across the world. As an entrepreneur I often engage in projects where I need additional expertise.

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain
[Paul Melessen]
I have got a few deals through LinkedIn as well.

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?
[Paul Melessen]
I first look at expertise, then at geographical area and then at steps away from me.

v) Your thoughts on "Quality vs Quantity" connections?
[Paul Melessen]
As a rule I ignore people with more than 1000 connections, as they hardly can be taken seriously in terms of managing their networks. I try to avoid connections with people who show their e-mail address in their profile name. Some even advertise themselves as regional hub. Rediculous ! A pity I find that it is not possible to delete connections yourself. Some people try to spam by sending large messages under the header ' I updated my profile' .

Paul Melessen
Owner of 4C Corporate Culture Clash & Chemistry (www.fourcee.nl)
Researcher at Tilburg University, Department of Economics

Interview of Jan Karel Kleijn

Jan Karel Kleijn is Entrepreneur, Innovator, Idea and Conceptmaker, Consults on e-Strategy and Marketing, Speaker and Teacher.

i) What you like about Linkedin?

I used to like the high Quality network which is rapidly degrading due to linkedin becoming a sort of monster.com all the high flyers are slowly l;eaving is my impression due to: very restrictive privacy rules and not wanted to be found by headhunters.

ii) How Has linkedin helped you?

It has esthablished a presence for me and made me visible amongst a whole lot of business people worldwide.

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain
No not really, I have had plenty of leads, but most of them not interesting to me, with some of them I still have contact though.

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?
By interest or business type.

v) Your thoughts on "Quality vs Quantity" connections?
I believe in growing your network as opposed to putting your existing ‘rolodex’ network online

vi) What about privacy?
Linked in has a very strange privacy policy. Which means you can’t invite people you don’t know yet.As opposed to Open BC where you can invite and select people you want to know or feel you have something in common with.I’ve been suspended from inviting people twice now on Linkedin by their CPO (chief privacy officer) for inviting people to my network!!I think this is very strange for a business network where you want to meet new people.

Greetings,
Jan Karel KleijnSerial Entrepreneur
Partner at Result Strategy (growth consultancy)
htpp://www.result.com
Founder of Ideabroker.org (innovate start-up stimulator)
htpp://www.ideabroker.org
MD at Fon NL (global wifi network)
htpp://www.fon.com
Commercial Director at TCS (foto and feature agency) (interim) htpp://www.thecoverstory.com
Owner Youi (business consultancy)
htpp://www.youi.nl
Owner Slogo (t-shirt seller)
htpp://www.slogo.nl
Owner Food and Friends (matching service in restaurants)
htpp://www.foodandfriends.nl

Interview of Joe Gillespie

Joe is a proven CIO and Executive Consultant and Partner in a national organization, B2B CFO/CIO, and in the past has been a very successful CEO launching his own company, CIO for a couple of NYSE listed companies, and CFO for another NYSE listed company. Joe will make “IT” happen for your organization. With a reputation as an innovative change agent, Joe enables growth and creates competitive advantage for organizations through IT enabled solutions while controlling and reducing expenses, producing bottom line profits.
Bio: (Click here)
Website: www.b2bcio.com

i) What you like about Linkedin?

[Joe] Compared to other community sites the percentage of more senior executives is much higher and LinkedIn has also established critical mass with over 4 million members.

ii) How does linkedin helped you?

[Joe] I’ve had some job interviews where I didn’t initiate the contact, I’ve had business opportunities, and I have gained some critical exposure as well as establishing some critical relationships. It also gives me a great deal of personal satisfaction by being able to help others in what may be some very significant ways.

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain:

[Joe] It’s hard to say and I’ve spent most of my professional time working for NYSE listed companies but now my business is focused on serving small to medium businesses. These companies don’t use LinkedIn yet, but when I need resources for them I do leverage my contacts to bring talent to bear on a specific problem.

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?

[Joe] I used to be very active at trying to reach out to new people. Through organizations I often contacted fellow members, especially when I found them already in LinkedIn and they had several existing LinkedIn connections. For one organization I have 20,000 plus executives in my other contacts file and over 2,000 of these are currently LinkedIn members. If I wanted to farm these I could certainly add a few more connections pretty quickly from these. This does take a considerable amount of time though. Earlier this year I was #8 as far as the number of overall connections but I have only sent out a handful of connection requests over the last six months since I’m more focused on starting up a couple of new companies at this point and LinkedIn has changed their policies. They now sell the ability for a few bucks to reach out to anyone through InMail which reduces the incentive to create your own connections. The more connections you have and create, the more work you end up doing on behalf of LinkedIn by evaluating and forwarding requests of others as a super-connector. I now have well over ½ million connections within only two degrees. LinkedIn considers super-connectors in the same regard as spammers vs. a critical gateway and component of their network that glues everything together. They should provide a feedback score like eBay as recognition or some higher membership level for providing this service but the opposite attitude seems to be prevalent in LinkedIn.

v) Your thoughts on "Quality vs Quantity" connections?

[Joe] Quality is treating everyone as you’d expect to be treated. Having a large network does means that you may not know everyone as well as you’d like but a weak connection is still better than having no connection. You also can’t prejudge the value of a connection. You never know what you might need and the future and that might just be the person with the relationship you need. So I’m a fan of Quantity but don’t think it’s necessarily an either or situation. I also don’t understand people that will only connect with people they already know through LinkedIn. If they don’t want to reach out and get to know others, then why are they on LinkedIn? If they only want to keep up with their existing contacts, Plaxo does a much better job for a lot less effort. To network you have to have an attitude to first give and without an expectation to receive anything back from a specific contact. That doesn’t mean that you don’t ever get anything back but it’s not quid pro quo.

v) Would you do it all over again if you were starting from scratch with LinkedIn?

[Joe] I have made a huge investment of my time and have been very active in some of the related Yahoo forums before changing my focus about six months ago and scaling back my efforts as I mentioned. I’ve been asking that question myself. I’d like to think I would do it all over again but I’ve certainly been disappointed by the direction LinkedIn has taken and to some extent feel betrayed by the fact that they allow others to amass a huge network with much less effort by just paying a few extra bucks for a higher level membership. While I understand that LinkedIn has to turn a profit, they talk about not spamming people and connecting only to people you know, that is unless you want to pay LinkedIn for doing otherwise. I don’t want to come across as too negative though. I’m still a big fan of LinkedIn.

Interview with Christian Mayaud

Chris has extensive healthcare, technology, and operating experience managing companies from their start-up through their growth phases. Chris has a track record as an aggressive company builder and market entry strategist.
i) What you like about Linkedin?
[Christian Mayaud] As a Venture Capitalist and a former serial entrepreneur, I had been studying the online social networking and blogsophere for opportunities to invest. When LinkedIn initially went "live", I, like most venture capitalists, "joined" to get an early look to see if there was something there. Since then I've been extremely impressed at LinkedIn's Market Entry Strategy -- or at least how it has evolved over time--

Phase I -- LinkedIn's initial membership was heavy with curious venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, technologists and recruiters (basically Reid's buddies and their networks) ... LinkedIn quickly reached critical mass in these industries which made LinkedIn attractive for members in the next Phase and kept LinkedIn "business oriented".

Phase II --LinkedIn attracted a second wave of serious Online Business Networkers who were curious as well. BUT, LinkedIn Management did a great job keeping focused on "referrals only" and didn't fall to pressures from the serious online networkers to evolve LinkedIn into a real "Online Networking Platform" -- with all of those specialized "bells and whistles" that would be required to keep they happy (Look at Spoke -- a truly amazing platform which is basically irrelevant because it was designed for serious networking)

LinkedIn's Strategy for Phase II?
1) "Keep the Networkers happy with a great "minimum feature set" referral application,"
2) "Don't contradict the "erroneous Networking Buzz" surrouunding LinkedIn, as long as it keeps newmembers coming,"
3) "Convert the Connections of Online Networkers into LinkedIn membership", and
4) "Do NOT become an online networking platform"
This formula of using the "Networking Minority" to get access to their contacts inorder to grow LinkedIn membership with the "Non-Networking Majority" has been extremely effective and is responsible for their current membership growth phase.

Phase III --LinkedIn is now focused almost entirely on keeping the "Non-Networking Majority" happy. This is a great strategy since the needs of "Non-Networkers" are much more basic than "Networkers" and they way out number the networking population. Networkers have lots of reasons for networking but everyone needs a job from time to time. True Online Networkers are probably less than 1m worldwide, but "Non-Networkers" constitute "everyone else" -- you do the math, but I would argue that 80% of LinkedIn membership are there for "job opportunities" and don't give a damn about online networking. When LinkedIn membership gets to 10m the percentage of "Networking Members" will be single digit.

While many "Online Networkers" are feeling "they have been used" (they have) and that this was a "bait and switch" (it was), it is important to realize that for LinkedIn to succeed financially and to keep their status as a "Job Board #1 on Steroids" LinkedIn management must shift their focus to "non-networkers".

The next 6 months will be critical for LinkedIn as a company. The challenge LinkedIn management faces is how to subtly re-position itself away from the "online network" (which it has never said it is but has allowed confused people to believe it is) towards what is has always been --

A really great referral application built on a human-spam filtered search engine. LinkedIn has benefited from the "What is Online Networking " confusion in the past -- but how they treat their "networking minority" may be the biggest challenge they face moving forward --

A good sign is the advent of OpenLink which could be the start of tools which actually help "online networking minority"

A bad sign is that we are increasingly hearing reports that LinkedIn Management is systematically harrassing and threatening members who engage in true online networking activities.

The reality is simple.
LinkedIn no longer needs online networkers but just getting rid of them wholesale after your are through exploiting them may leave bad blood among a relatively influential minority that could impact how the majority view LinkedIn longterm.

Hopefully, LinkedIn will come up with a creative compromise solution to the increasing tension between management and the online networking community --- and yes, this is the flip-side of pretending you encourage online networking when you really don't -- you have to deal with the consequences. They done a great job executing so far and LinkedIn is one great online application -- it's just not a networking platform.

ii) How does linkedin helped you?
[Christian Mayaud]As a Venture Captialist there are three main ways LinkedIn helps me --

1) Deal Flow -- Over the last two years, new deal flow coming through LinkedIn has been strong. The issue as to whether or not I would have seen most of these deals anyway is not clear. But it seem that for many deals I would have seen anyway as well as for some new deals, its' just easier to approach us through LinkedIn rather than the traditional "offline" channels.

2) References -- LinkedIn has proven to be very efficient way to find people with opinions about management team members in companies we are considering investments in.

3) Other Due Diligence Activities --LinkedIn has also proven useful when you need to find a few "experts" in "specialized fields" to interview for their market insights.

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain.
[Christian Mayaud] as per above

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?

[Christian Mayaud]I tend to follow my own "Cheaters' Guide to LinkedIn" advice
Click here ]

Studies show (consistent with my own experience), that "Quantity" is a necessary but entirely insufficient conditionto maintaining a "High Quality" network -- in other words --

"Open Networks" which tend to grow larger over time ("Quantity") but they also continue to grow in "Quality" while "Closed Networks" (which focus on "quality") tend to atrophy and lose value and quality overtime. The truth is that it is "Open Networks" that generate the "Quality" NOT so-called "Selective" (or "quality-focused") Networks.

BTW, The whole "Quality vs Quanity" pseudo-debate is just another example pure "self-serving" obfuscation encouraged by LinkedIn Management as they distance themselve from the online networking community [ more on this in my post "Right-Sizing Your PANs, CANs, and FANs"
( Click here )]

The Key to Online Networking for me is--
You must be the one to bring the value and not expect anything in return for it (at least initially) -- in other words, I never chose not to be help just because I haven't figure out "What's in it for me." I'm sure there are those that maintain networks which are high quality and very effective which are built on a "What's in it for me approach." -- I just find that unnatural in my "offline world" so I can't imagine behaving any differently in the "online world". This is just a question of my personal style and not necessarily a recommendation for others to follow.

I hardly ever approach someone on LinkedIn who is not already in my Outlook addressbook and I never approach anyone who is not already a LinkedIn member. In my case this isn't all that restrictive because my outlook addressbook has over 60k contacts in it - collected over the last thirty years of my professional life.

Interview with Ron Bates

Ron Bates is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. His search practice focuses on mission critical retained searches for pre-IPO Venture Capital backed start-ups to Fortune500 clients. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec's responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded www.CV-Advantage.com a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process. With +22,000 direct contacts, Ron is also the most connected individual in the world on www.LinkedIn.com. His Ecademy profile can be viewed at http://www.ecademy.com/user/ronbates. Ron can be reached at rbates@executive-advantage.com.


i) What you like about Linkedin?

+4,000,000 business professionals makes LinkedIn one of the largest business networking sites. Out of all of the “business networking” sites, it is the most focused on business rather than social networking. That said, every networking platform is limited in how it can help someone accomplish networking objectives. LinkedIn is simply a database of +4 million members combined with a not so sophisticated note passing mechanism, with all of the capability and content being behind a password protected firewall. In other words, I’m the most connected person in the world on LinkedIn by almost 2X, but I’m invisible on the Internet with respect to my participation on LinkedIn. This isn’t necessarily true as compared to other networking platforms like Ecademy.

ii) How does linkedin helped you?

I use LinkedIn to help other people less than I do to help myself. Prior to LinkedIn, I was always getting contacted by people that knew me asking, “You’re an executive recruiter. Do you know anyone that we could talk to about Beta-site testing our product, market research, interviewing for a book, etc.” (i.e., stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with what I do for a living, and purely wanting access to my contact database). I try to help people out however I can because I believe that “Good Will” will always comes back to me. When LinkedIn came along I saw this as a platform where I could continue to do this, but on a greater scale and much more efficiently.
That said, Linkedin has increased my exposure in that more people know who I am and what I do.

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain.

Not hugely, but in the approximately 2 years I’ve been a member, we have won approximately $250K - $350K per year of business that came directly through LinkedIn members coming to me.

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?

I believe everyone has unique value and as such I’m happy to connect with anyone. Needs by definition are a time based reality. I also can’t predict what my needs will be in a week, month or year, and as such don’t know what kind of individual I may need to leverage from a networking perspective. Same is true with respect to the people that connect with me, and why people feel connecting networks with me is so beneficial. Net, I’m a believer in their being “Quality – in – Quantity”.

Personally, I believe networking is about “giving before getting” which implies you need to be willing to accept a certain amount of risk when networking with others. I don’t believe in the limiting approach of solely networking with individuals “I know –really- well.” As such, I end up helping far more people than those who are only willing to network with people that they do know really well. I find that more often than not, people that are only willing to network with you if they know you really well aren’t so focused on “giving before getting”. At one point in time everybody that knows anyone really well – didn’t – and accepted the risks associated with developing a relationship with that person by giving them the benefit of the doubt that they were a well meaning good person. It would be a pretty cold world if we didn’t do that, and I believe the more often we do that the more enriched our lives can become through relationships with other people.

That said, the most common question I get from people is, “+23,000 contacts! How do you build/maintain/grow relationships with +23,000 people?” My answer is always the same, “One person at a time.”

Happy Networking,

Ron Bates
Managing Principal
Executive Advantage Group
rbates@executive-advantage.com

www.cv-advantage.com
(includes discounts to 10 service providers including GroupMail and GammaDyne Email/Marketing Campaign Software)
www.job-search-campaign.com
Connect with me on LinkedInnetwork,
networking, selling, relationships, job, search, career, resume, CV

Interview of Pier Paolo Mucelli

Date: Dec9,2005

Mr. Pier Paolo Mucelli is the founder and main shareholder of eOffice. A new business culture is evolving with the technology and the surroundings to enable business executives to change the way they work. Here are the responses to the questions.

i ) What you like about Linkedin?
Large member base, international spread and strong member base in TM sector

ii) How does linkedin helped you?
Extra exposure for my business

iii) Has your business increased by using linkedin? Please explain
Yes, build a large endorsement list, good for marketing purposes.
Signed new clients

iv) How do you select contact to whom you want to connect?
I tend to work on quantity, so that quality will emerge too!

Better ways of using Linkedin

Better ways of using Linkedin

Hi, folks. Let me make a long story short and simply say that I have trying to get as much connected as possible in short perid of time. I have so far build a good network of people in mine network. Here are few of the points which you may found helpful in developing the Linkedin contacts. please send me feedback at hament.vermaATgmail.com


1) Research
Reaserch is powerful way to understand about the important person in your market. Find all the key person in your industry. Contact them and invite them to your linkedin network. You may also like to visit ntetworking sites like ecademy.com, ryze.com and connect with like minded person.

2) Connect to relevant person
Make contact with the person who are relvant you. Other gentelman when look at your contacts should feel that there is value in connecting to you. Donot invite person just for increasing numbers of connections.

3) Write good request.
Find out how other person want the request. In which areas he is looking for the contacts. Making untelated request does not help. The first objective while having the request in mind is to understand other person.

4) Forward request.
Think twice. Is it cold call. Will is enhance your reputation? Ask back the person who is requestion? Do he know about the details to which the request is being send to?

Please please understand Forwarding request with proper info is very important. Comment if you dont know well saying it polietly. Always keep record of the request you have forward and ask after some time if the request was good and authentic. Also ask the person who has intiated the request about the feedabck on same. Time consuming but this is required.

5) Buid up your profile.
Your profile is the way you present yourself to other user. Add you positions, key word related to your profile and if possible the endorsement for your position. Try to tell what you are doing and looking for in networking. Also say a lot regarding the request that you will forward.

People will like to look at the responsiblites that you have taken in the position.

6) Get conneted to most connected.
One of the way to get noticed is to get connected to most connected people on linkedin. Chances are that new people will get connected to most connected person and they can be in your neywork.

7) Use Key words in your profile.
Try to put good keywords in your profile so that your profile poped up when others searches it. If your profile came in search result more likely you wil find a good fit with your contact.
You can use key word to highlight your product services company education etc.

8) Search for better contact in your network.
There is limit of displaying 500 memebrs only so use different criteria to reach to new profile. For example you can have a position specific search like CEO , director etc. You may also like to search on base of country specific search. Also try to go to go to city level searches.

9) Get connected to specialist.
Specialist know more ideas on the specific topic. Also they are connected to some of the best person on your topic. So search out the specialist on the internet and through your offline contacts. Invite them to linkedin if they are not on linkedin.

You can then send request to connected with the contact of the specialist. USe this feature judicially and if possible help out the specialist first. :)

10) Write a blog
Blogs can be very effective in putting you on top of the search engines. If you want to come up in search engine for some specific key words just write blog on it and promote same. The people will search on same and will come back to your blog. Post appropriate link so that people can write back to you. Once recieving the mail you can develop the relationship and invite them to come in your network.

11) Get testomonial
Testomonials are one of the most important aspect in establishing your creditiblity in terms of yourself , of your services and product. Online medium can be of little value if you dont have the trust associated with you. So ask for your custmer friends and person known to you to endorse you. THis will help in devleoping your credentails in the Linkedin. People will look at the testomonials and will be happy to see that there are so many people you have worked with you and are happy with you.

If some of your customer are high profile than it will give you added advantage.

12)Have a win Attitude.
Win atttitude goes long way in placing you weel ahead of others and getting connected to right person to gain business. Some of the contacts will be lazy but all you need to do is to talk to them communicate them in volve them and develop a reationship.

13) Forward request quickly
When ever your contact send a request to forward through you, seek the opportunity to
- find out which type of contacs are beeing seeked
- how they are sending the request
- if needed ask more question to the request originator
- develope contact with the chin in which the request is moving
- forward request as soon as posible.


14) Don't forget your connection
Always meet up after some time. phone them,
Find out on which project are they working.
How there business is progressing.
All these will give you insight into his minset and his requirement. Find out person from your network and connect them to help out.

The more closely connected you will remain to the contact the benefit will come back to you.

15) Join linkedin group
Join the linkedin google group to exchange notes on the ways we can help each other in solving the problem in connecting with most of people. The club is for exchanging the notes for few commited people. You can join the club by adding your email on the top of this page in text box.

Please not that this club is not for selling or connecting people.

16) Think about positive realtionships
POsitive thoughts have very important impact on the type of relationship we are going to have in the future. Try to have postive thoughts in the mind, about getting connected on win win note. We always like to have good people in the network who want to get associated with us, help us , our business and get helped themself too.

17) Help others
Helping other is one of the sure way to devleop the trust you need. Say if you helped two directors to meet each other they will have trust on you and some time down the line they will hep you or eoccmend you. There is nothing more powerful than being connected to CEo , director and high profile person who helps to work in your favor.

Some of other tips are
18) Write testimonial for others
19) Give business lead to others
20) Develpe trust in realtionship
21) Mail out to all your old friends
22) Invite more connection
23) Get conneted to your college professor
24) Find out the expert in your domain
25) Remain focussed in your approach
26) Build a long term plan for your linkedin connection
27) Deny request whom you dont know.
21) Have a sense of trust you can give to person you are refering
22) Ask back after refering how the person is.
23) Tell bluntly if the person is not highly trustworthy.
24) Send request through trusted person.
25) Be specific in request
26) Meet in person.
27) Dial to talk to him.
28) Use skype to talk to your contacts.
29) Send seasons greeting
30) Make contacts regularly
31) Ask Linkedin to disconnect if you are not comfortable
32) Increase the number of your contacts by joining groups
33) Increase your average new connection per day.
34) Increase your average interaction frequency i.e. if they you contact once a quarter, try to contact them once a month; if
you interact once a month how can you increase purposeful ineraction
35) Reduce attrition (cut the number of contacts who no longer interact with you.) i.e. if you have 100 contacts and you lose 20 a year (which you need to constantly replace), cut that attrition rates from 20 to 100 and in 10 years you have doubled the size of your network .... at little or no additional cost.
36) Try to find out regularly about the product and services of your contact. Ask them which person they are looking to contact with..
37) Visit blogs of expert on your topic. Contribute i n thier blog and send invitation to join the network.
38) Expect other person to help you.
39) Protect your profile from non significant connection.
40) Linkedin is tool only for managing the contacts.
41) Talk to them on phone.
42) Keep sample request.
43) Sugession of networking.
44) Power tips
45) Add record in local adress book
46) Put sugession to linkedin
47) Add position to your profile
48) Get testomonial to past position
49) Avoid duplicate account
50) Add education details
51) Quality vs quantity
52) Getting most of linkedin
53) Advertise on linkedin
54) Get employee from referal
55) Connect you employees of your past companies
56) Note in advance which type of people you want to connect.
57) Find out the jobs avalable in your network at linkedin.com