Finding the value in LinkedIn

I have been quite surprised by the number of people who complain about LinkedIn being a) a complete waste of time and/or b) just a plain 'job search' application. Obviously you could make it just that but also alot more, it really depends on how much time and effort you are prepared to invest.

To make an analogy, you wouldn't create a mailbox and then instantly expect to receive 300 interesting emails overnight. In fact, if you get any interesting mail at all it's because you have taken the time to advertise your email address in one form or another.

So why do we expect socializing online to be any different from socializing offline? If you walk into a room full of people, grab a drink and then go and stand alone in a corner, what are your chances of engaging with people? Pretty meak; at least certainly much slimmer than for those who decide to actively engage in conversation.

That's why we 'use' (sorry, bad bad word) our network of friends and relations to get introduced to other people. The same goes for LinkedIn. You need to mimick your real social network, get introduced to others by people you know and trust and move on from there.

The greatest value of the network to me is being given the ability to contact hundreds of experts, people who would previously have remained unreachable, in mere seconds.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to find a comprehensive, cost-effective CRM 'solution'. Now, there are lots of applications out there: sugarCRM, XRMS, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Zoho and many more.

One way to figure out which is the 'best' solution is to test each application and then try to weigh the pros and cons, and drop cost into the balance somewhere. Now, that can be pretty time-consuming and without being an expert yourself, you can't really guarantee end-result.

Another way to work out the 'ideal' course of action is simply to ask the question on LinkedIn using their Q&A feature. The beauty in this is you reach out to hundreds of experts who might spend let's say 1 to 10 minutes answering your question. Within 24-hours you are actually conversing with more people than you would have been able to get hold of by phone in a day.

And, there is no question that the 10-minutes they spent answering, were much more valuable than my searching for information that isn't in my field of expertise. And, to top it all off, it was great fun corresponding with all the people who replied. Much like in 'offline life' we can engage in a valuable exchange of ideas and knowledge.

So, IMHO, there really is much more to social (or business, as some would have it) networking than at first meets the eye.

What is your take?