This morning while catching on the latest social media news I heard about
LinkedIn's
new product release
InMaps
I was excited to take it for a spin.
"InMaps is an interactive visual representation of your professional universe that answers all of the above questions," says LinkedIn's Ali Imam. "It's a great way to understand the relationships between you and your entire set of LinkedIn connections. With it you can better leverage your professional network to help pass along job opportunities, seek professional advice, gather insights, and more."
After checking out my InMap for a little while I couldn't really come up with any reasonable use case for InMaps except to show off how many connections I have.
It is possible that you could look at your InMap and notice two of your contacts in different clusters that just have to be introduced, but I'm stretching a little for that one. If nothing else, it is definitely a pretty representation of my professional network, and I did enjoy clicking on some old connections and having their information display in the sidebar on the right.
One useful takeaway I did get from my InMap was the fact that I need to start making some connections with people other than college buddies and employees at my HubSpot . Why don't you take a look at your InMap and let me know what it helped you discover about your professional network.
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John White 3:10 PM on January 25, 2011
>One useful takeaway I did get from my InMap was the fact that I need to start making some connections with people other than college buddies and employees at my HubSpot.
Actually, that's more than "useful;" it's critical.
One or two choice connections in an unaccustomed industry or geo really pays off.
Anne Ashley 3:21 PM on January 25, 2011
Thanks for sharing this Eric. I am connected with past and future, which is good.
It would be neat to see how it is different in a year.
Nicely generated graphic result.
Phil O'Brien 6:50 AM on January 26, 2011
Hi Eric. InMaps is a really good addition to LinkedIn. I think just taking the time out to review your network is part of the appeal - much more exciting, quicker, stimulating that the boring LI interface! I'd be interested if you have a feel for what percentage of your total Personal Network is on LI? I recently did an "audit" and only had 11% on LI - with 71% of those being week ties. For more reading on InMedia quotes and video explaining from DJ Patil (LinkedIn Chief Scientist) at http://wp.me/pYnfH-7f (video shows him explaining on large piece of paper - much better than my MacBook screen)
Dan Tyre 10:23 AM on January 26, 2011
I like this, the power of the personal/business network to help solve problems. I am giving it a try and will report back
April M. Williams 6:31 PM on January 29, 2011
Checking out my LinkedIn profile InMap I got this message,
"Wow! That's one large network. The good news: you've got an impressively large network. The bad news: we can't currently create a map from so many connections. Stay tuned - we're working to increase the limit!"
http://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilmwilliams
Mike O'Neil 3:24 AM on January 31, 2011
I really wonder what this will be like for non-theorists, regular users. I see little practical use for it frankly. This is the message I get:
"Wow! That's one large network.
The good news: you've got an impressively large network. The bad news: we can't currently create a map from so many connections. Stay tuned - we're working to increase the limit!"
30,000 direct connections throws LinkedIn fits sometimes.