nowEurope

A friend and longtime nowEurope reader recently emailed me to ask about an invitation he received from me to join my LinkedIn network: “I’ve never figured out what to do with LinkedIn and its like,” Nels wrote me. “How do you use it? Do people hunt for you there? Why? How do they know what to look for, apart from your name … and how do you look for people? By function? area of interest? location?”

Nels isn’t the only person asking - last month I sat down with a Hungarian newspaper reporter to explain the whole thing. And no wonder, with the recent sale of IWIW to T-Online, social networking is all the rage in Hungary. Here’s a brief primer for those who might feel left out.

So how do you use social networking sites? The obvious answer is that you connect to all of your friends to build a network. But what good is that?

In the case of Hungary’s social network, IWIW,, I’m afraid there’s no answer (as yet). For now, all you can do is connect. Some of us find that fun. I enjoy reconnecting with old friends and seeing who knows who. But what can we do once we’re all connected?

The answer LinkedIn proposes is that we can all find work. The structure of your LinkedIn profile reads exactly like a CV or resume. Here’s mine. LinkedIn also provides various channels for you to connect to other people for the purpose of finding a job, an employee, or project or investment.

You can search for people according to company, location, industry or education. The site then shows you which friends connect you to that person, and you can ask that friend to introduce you.

Let’s say I wanted to contact somebody at LinkedIn Corporation - the company that runs the service. A search on that term shows me that I have connections to 14 people at LinkedIn. The Director of Technology, Yan Pujante is a third-level connection, which means I can ask one of 11 people I know to introduce me to somebody they know, who can introduce me to Yan.

Since Asylum (my last employer) tanked, a number of us have been using LinkedIn to hunt for jobs. We link to each other and provide introductions to each other. We hunt for strategically placed contacts that might help us get a foot in the door. The fact is people usually prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust. As a lead generation device, LinkedIn is unparalleled.

I also want to mention OpenBC, because this social networking site is much more Europe focused, they have venture capital and they promise to give LinkedIn a good run for the money.