I’m a great fan of LinkedIn … as you might imagine … although it’s true that we don’t always see eye to eye on things!
However, watching breakfast television this week I saw that they had launched an initiative in Manchester that is aimed at helping to get more people on to LinkedIn with a profile and skills that properly reflects their skillset – this might be people already with a LinkedIn profile that needs improving or people yet to join the site who will be helped to get started in the right way. The aim is to help them be more findable and hence hopefully be more findable by local companies in the area looking for people with the relevant skills they have.
This is something that they are accompanying with the hashtag #ProjectManchester and they are doing a bit of a tour bus exercise around the Greater Manchester area, getting on the road and offering a free headshot from their professional photographer as well as a chat with their LinkedIn profile experts.
This is all happening next week and the published itinery is:
Monday 22nd June
Piccadilly Gardens (8am – 6pm)
Tuesday 23rd June
Piccadilly Gardens (8am – 10am)
Manchester Metropolitan (11am – 2pm)
Piccadilly Gardens (3.00 – 6pm)
Wednesday 24th June
Central Library (8am – 10am)
Salford University (11am – 2pm)
Cathedral Gardens / National Football Museum (3pm – 6pm)
Thursday 25th June
Central Library (8am – 10am)
Manchester University (11am – 1.30pm)
BUPA – Media City (3pm – 6pm)
Friday 26th June
Central Library (8am – 12pm)
BBC Media City (1.30pm – 6pm)
Seems like an ideal opportunity to get some advice on your profile, although I think they will be focusing on it from a jobseekers perspective – this will then of course need to change to more of a “sales & marketing plus business card” document as you enter a job and your rationale for being on LinkedIn changes as a result.
Who knows – afterwards, you may want to take the whole process forward in which case you may find my “Using LinkedIn for Business” course may prove to be the ideal follow up! 🙂
Their loftier ambitions the concept of the “Economic Graph” is one that is ambitious but achievable, at least in part. The idea of LinkedIn being able to work as the focal point of your work / professional life is no easy element but it is a possible one. They are also looking to work with local businesses to identify where the skills shortages might exist and then use their recent acquisition Lynda.com to help plug that gap – let’s see how that works in practice but the potential is enormous.
Now, I’m in Manchester on a regular basis as I have a number of clients that I run in-house workshops for in the Great Manchester areas and also I run Public courses there every 6 weeks or so. I was also at the GMBizExpo last week and so had an additional chance to talk to companies there so got a feel for how things were. The mood was certainly buoyant so anything along these lines can only be good to help keep up the momentum … long may that continue.
More details from the original blog on LinkedIn.
