DriftZero is an urbanized company that completely revolves around longboards and clothing. This company is dedicated to giving full satisfaction to the customer no matter what.
I’ve had five or six blogs since 2004, being one of the early adopters of TypePad. Typically, I don’t change the address—instead, I delete and archive the material and move on with some other topic.
There is logic to my thinking. This site would look ridiculous with my music reviews or pictures from family trips. Now we have a thriving online social world with specific places to put things and where people share ideas in many forums.
I’m still trying to figure out the narrative of stoke the fire 3.0. so for inspiration, I looked back at some of my earliest blog entries for inspiration. And I found this gem.
This is a repost of my April 17, 2004 entry about a little known Web site called LinkedIn. At that point, the company was a year post-launch and slowly gaining traction. We didn’t know what to make of it, but it had promise.
Here it is, LinkedIn, circa 2004, and what I had to say about it.
________________________________
A few weeks ago, I received an email from one of the members of my TEC group. It said something like this:
————————————–
John, I’ve recently been invited me to join LinkedIn. It would be great to have you in my professional network. LinkedIn lets you reach recommended employees, hiring managers and business partners through referrals from people you already know and trust. You won’t receive spam or unwanted requests since people can only reach you if I decide to forward a message to you because it looks like a good opportunity.”
————————————–
After doing some snooping on their Web site, I decided they seemed legit. And, since I’d received the invitation from someone I knew, I didn’t see any harm in it.
In a sense, LinkedIn is Friendster for business. LinkedIn is based on the six degrees of separation concept—that you’re only six introductions away from anyone on the planet. Here’s how it works: after you’re invited by someone to join, you can upload the names of the people you’ve done business with—and trust, which the site stresses is important—and invite them to join your network. As your network expands and the people within your network expand THEIR network, your potential connections increase dramatically.
The key to the system is this: while you can “connect” with anyone down the network chain, you must be introduced first by one of your direct connections. That makes the system abuse-proof, or damn near it. LinkedIn has made the radar screen of the mainstream media, and it seems that in short period of time, they have hundreds of thousands of people in the network.
I’m fascinated with this nascent business. Done right, LinkedIn is a great way to use technology to build trust with potential business relationships—the opposite of what spam is doing to destroy the viability of e-commerce. I see LinkedIn as being invaluable with recruiters, consultants, and anyone seeking to expand their networks.
What I haven’t figured out is how LinkedIn will make money. They’ll probably start charging a subscription fee, or some sort of fee to search the network. So far, the site is banner free.
Tara Hunt’s piece on the HBR’s blog network clearly articulates what I’ve been thinking for years, as the nascent idea of social networking turned mainstream. We have a fundamental misunderstanding what this evolution is all about. In her words, it’s about “making our lives better” and goes on to explain how companies fail to execute on their brand promise through social media. ”Instead of thinking of all of the ways to reach your customers, think of all of the ways to improve your relationships with customers so they reach one another.” Amen.
If you are in the business of creating your social brand, take 5 minutes and carefully consider what she’s written. I couldn’t say it better myself, so I won’t.
DriftZero 