LinkedIn

Connections and Answers

The LinkedIn site gives its users an overview of their professional contact networks by displaying Connections at several levels. The network resulting from the direct Connections made by a user forms the basis of the system. In addition to this, the user gets an overview of the Connections made by his or her Connections (second-degree Connections) and also the Connections in between these (third-degree Connections). This generates possibilities for new contacts to be made, as any user can browse the direct Connections of any of his own Connections. LinkedIn Connections may be used to find important people, new jobs, and business opportunities. They can also be used by companies to announce positions and to search out suitable job candidates.

The site relies on a principle of trust, since making contacts requires a pre-existing relationship or mediation by a common contact. One important social networking feature of the site is expressed in LinkedIn Groups, which make it possible for users to join associations ranging from alumni groups to specialized professional groups. LinkedIn may also function as a database for users interested in getting an image of companies for which they are interested in working or cooperating. Using the search function will yield information about the structure of the company and a list of its present and former employees. LinkedIn claims that executives from all Fortune 500 companies are members of the site.

An important part of LinkedIn is its Answers feature, a knowledge-market service that leverages the user base of the site. Knowledge markets are based on the idea of collective intelligence that has been discussed by a number of theorists in sociology, business studies, and computer science from the late 1970s onward. The core idea is that the collaboration and competition between large numbers of individuals leads to the emergence of a shared and collective knowledge.

LinkedIn Answers is based on a similar logic of socially pooling existing knowledge. Naturally, many users of the site are deeply specialized experts in some fields while being less familiar with other areas. Such a division of labor forms a suitable basis for the generation of collective intelligence, where the network neighborhood forms the basis for the distribution of questions. By using the social network on LinkedIn, one can determine whom to ask certain questions, with the idea that users will be more prone to answer questions posed by individuals with whom they have some sort of connection or trust. Being linked to someone will provide a stronger motivation and a supporting social context to provide an answer that is as helpful as possible. There is also the possibility for users who do not have any solutions to posted problems to suggest someone who knows the answer. This increases the likelihood for a given issue to be resolved and may also promote the creation of new connections.

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