Link In

I think I must be the last guy to join the social media revolution!  I’ve resisted Facebook for years. I don’t want to be a Tweeter. And I’m not looking for a job, so why bother with LinkedIn?

I finally decided, after a lot of prodding, that since most of my clients and partners were on LinkedIn that I needed to be, just to facilitate communication and relationships. So, I set up an account. It was interesting.

In the first place, I had to think back to my career and decide what to put “out there.” When you get to be my age, you forget about a lot of the things you’ve done and accomplished. So, this exercise turned out to be fun and satisfying in and of itself. 

After I got the account set up I started getting suggestions to ask people to link to me. So I did.  That was very interesting.  Within three weeks I had linked to almost 500 people! I had forgotten I knew that many. Apparently, you can upload all the lists of people you know and invite them too. I haven’t done that yet but will eventually. It will be fun to see how many people I know.

What’s been the most fun about this though is reconnecting with people that I had forgotten about—finding out what those folks are up to has been interesting. I’m looking forward to more of that.

I also discovered that I could very easily keep up with what insurance companies I represent are doing.  Now, that is valuable!

I also learned that I could use LinkedIn to find good employees.  Now that is useful!

I found out that I can have someone easily introduce me to someone else via LinkedIn that I’d like to, or need to know.  That is becoming very helpful.

I’m told that I can use LinkedIn for a number of other purposes to help build my business.  I’m anxious to learn how because I’ve realized that this community is where a lot of things happen in the 21^st century.  I don’t have a lot of answers.  I do have questions.  And I do know a useful tool when I see one.

Why don’t you join me there?  Are we LinkedIn?  If not please send me “a request”!  Let’s link up and discover the future together!