LinkedIn Labs has introduced InMaps – a visualization of your LinkedIn network. I first heard about InMaps via a Tweet from fellow #SMMOCer Mel Aclaro. LinkedIn wisely made sharing easy, and so a quick search will find plenty of fresh tweets about this as people discover the new feature.
I gave InMaps a quick spin and quickly discovered LinkedIn’s not-so-subtle ulterior motive: You can’t create a visualization unless you have at least 50 connections and your profile is at least 75% complete.
I’ll bet you a cold beverage that LinkedIn enjoys an sudden surge in both profile completion and network connections as a result.
For LinkedIn, it’s a brilliant move. By offering something sexy that people want (the groovy diagrams) but requiring them to step up and engage on a deeper level, the entire network wins. And (theoretically) they drive the behavior that they want from their community — people sharing deeper knowledge about their experience and connections.
How can we bring change to our community/organization/business/world? One small incentive at a time.
If you care, you can check out my visualization, create your own, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
That really is a deluxe representation of one’s professional self. You look very handsome as a connection mapping.
Why thank you, Jeff. It’s interesting to look at your network visually. For me, it helped me identify some real gaps. I have connections in the real world that aren’t reflected in my visualization. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, after all, it’s the real work that counts. But having the ability to see common connections in such a graphic way is pretty powerful.
Thanks for the mention, Jeff. Nice post.
‘Though that when you mentioned LinkedIn’s “ulterior motive” that it was going to be something somewhat commercially sinister. But, as it turns out, I’m cool with it. I agree with you that profile completions and requiring a minimum number of connections in order to be ‘graphed’ is a brilliant move. And, can be one of those tides that floats all boats.
Nice post. Thanks again.
Mel Aclaro
Yeah, it’s not sinister, but clever. I’m already thinking of ways to do something similar…
Thanks Jeff (via @Mel Aclaro), pretty cool graph, I will have to try it too. I haven’t looked at it yet though, I assume the colors have some significance (where connected from?) and I see mutual connections are shown too so it will be interesting to see how ‘connected” I truly am.
Brian, yes the colors indicate something — exactly what is for you to determine. In my case, most of the colors indicate people I’ve worked together with either currently or in the past. You also get the opportunity to label the colors in a legend on your network.
I think InMaps is a cool new feature – not sure about the ulterior motive! Think it’s a challenge to get a map without this sort of number of connections (but profile % might be a red herring). @Brian – the colours/groups are actually generated purely by the relationships between these contacts in your network. LinkedIn does not use any of the data like Zipcode, Companies, etc to do it. Kind of makes it more fascinating – me thinks! More here on InMaps – DJ Patil (LI’s Chief Scientist) walking your through his network – on a very large sheet of paper: http://wp.me/pYnfH-7f
Thanks for the link, Phil. Yes, I agree that you need more than 50 connections to garner much value from a network diagram, but the profile completion? Hmm… maybe they need some of that data to help with the algorithmic color-coding, but I think at least a part of this serves their desire to get people a bit more engaged.