2008 Q1 Report

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Executive’s Guide to Linkedin quarterly report. Although the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn is a professional service like many others offered by CSRA, it is also a community of highly motivated people. Our clients depend on us to research, create and deliver innovative services to help them understand social networks from an enterprise viewpoint and, more importantly, how to use them to get real-world results. Periodically, I will keep you apprised of EGLI’s results, challenges and goals and, as EGLI launched in January 2008, here goes with the first one.

EGLI Q1 Highlights

We hit the market at an inflection point. As predicted by yours truly, the B2B awareness on LinkedIn and Web 2.0 and willingness to act is spiking this year.

EGLI’s partnership with Samurai Business Group has gone swimmingly: we piloted a co-produced public seminar, learned much and extended to more sessions. Samurai, who specialize in helping executives with revenue responsibility to let their customers buy more by building trust-based relationships, is providing an excellent foil for the online-focused EGLI.

• The inaugural seminar was sold out, and two more are slated: on 17 May (Univ. Chicago Gleacher) and 12 June (IIT/Wheaton). For more, please see: http://tinyurl.com/5qo7wz
• The EGLI LinkedIn group launched, and it enables seminar alums to network and collaborate around the world.
• Executive speaking engagements have me on the road: many in Chicago and several deals in the works on both coasts. Here is a current list.
• The EGLI Profile Builder Service launched to serve executives who appreciate the importance and complexity of the LinkedIn profile yet do not have the time to invest in their own or want their business development team to have the edge. The EGLI studies what works and has created a repeatable process to produce excellent results.
• Completed the EGLI professional services framework v. 1. I eagerly anticipate working through it with enterprise clients.
• Several enterprise LinkedIn consulting opportunities in progress. For more on LinkedIn’s strategic and tactical value props, see LinkedIn and Enterprise 2.0: Definitions, Indicators and Case Studies.
• The EGLI Blog has doubled in size, and alums are honing their blogging skills by sharing their LinkedIn experiences.

Looking Ahead to Q2

As of writing, we are one third through Q2, so here is a quick list of some of our goals and challenges whose successful resolution we aim to report in July.

• Evolving the public seminars to constantly improve. The May 17 session will be on a Saturday and will feature a longer networking period with lunch included. June 2 changes the geo, as we pull up stakes and hoof it out to Wheaton. We are always looking for venues to bring the seminar to executive audiences.
• Intend to beta webcasts to support the seminars and go more in depth in key areas. Watch your email for more news as the debut gets closer.
• One of the most powerful things about online social networks is the ability to communicate asynchronously, and my intent is to build an online community in which people can ask for advice and the community can give advice. EGLI can play a facilitating and moderating role. Please give your input below using the comment feature. What would make it easier to help you to contribute to the community?
• I am thinking about starting a new section of the EGLI blog in which people can ask and answer LinkedIn questions. Would this be interesting? I realize that LinkedIn Answers is built for this, but some alums don’t have enough of a comfort level to post questions, even though I know they have the skills (we covered that ,^)
• Always interested to talk with executives interested in team training. Many alums tell me that they saw a whole different side to LinkedIn after the seminar. Imagine applying the skills to a business development or recruiting team. Multiply the results.

Parting Shots

Thanks for reading and your comments. Please share your thoughts here or via email anytime!

Christopher S. Rollyson, Managing Director, EGLI