LinkedIn: So Popular Nobody Goes There Anymore? – Well, GreaterIBM Is Now There, Too!

Tags: IBM, GreaterIBM, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking Tools, LinkedIn, openBC, XING, Second Life, Jerry Bowles, Enterprise Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0

You would remember how some time ago, a few months back, actually, I created a weblog post where I shared some details on an upcoming initiative from IBM related to Social Networking called GreaterIBM where IBM was going to try to get together in a social network current IBM employees and IBM alumni, people who were once IBM employees but who now may have moved elsewhere into other jobs. Well, I am not sure if you have been following such initiative already but, just in case, you may not have I would like to share with you folks that things have been buzzing big time for the last couple of months.

From its continued usage of the openBC (Now XING) social networking tool where we are still going very strong with it, to actually hosting a number of different face to face events in multiple countries and geographies (Here is a highlight from one of the most recent ones), to actually host a virtual bloc party in the ever exciting virtual world of Second Life (More on that at a later time, for sure!). Well, it looks like things are going to get even more interesting, because over at the GreaterIBM weblog (Where you can get all sorts of information about how such initiative is moving along) you would be able to read the following weblog entry: The Greater IBM Connection on LinkedIn.

In that particular entry you would be able to read how if you are a heavy user of LinkedIn, one of the most powerful business oriented social networks available out there at the moment, you can still enjoy all of the major key benefits from the GreaterIBM initiative because there is now a GreaterIBM LinkedIn Group for it. If you are a current IBMer or, much more importantly, if you are an IBM alumni, you can actually join us by going into this link. So if you were not sure if you would be going there and create just another profile over at XING, the main social network that GreaterIBM is using then you can still get the most out of it from signing up with that GreaterIBM LinkedIn group. Nifty !

While I was actually busy writing this particular weblog post mentioning that particular new capability from such IBM initiative in the social computing area, I just couldn’t help thinking about the recent weblog post that Jerry Bowles shared over at Enterprise Web 2.0 where he is actually starting it up with the title: LinkedIn: So Popular Nobody Goes There Anymore? In that particular article he is actually sharing some experiences from different folks as to how they feel about their social networking interactions within LinkedIn, perhaps one of the most popular social networks for professionals available out there. And I must say that the article itself makes for an interesting reading.

Main reason being that there are lots of different examples where it is detailed how social networking tools like LinkedIn may be just a bit too much noise going around lately, but in some other cases it can provide some incredible business value, like the fantastic success story from Ismael Ghalimi which Jerry also highlights in his weblog post.

Either way, while I went through the weblog article it clearly reminded me of another couple of posts that I have shared not long ago where I stated that the clear business value of any such tools as social networking tools would depend not much on the raw number of the connections you probably make, no matter how many you actually have, or how many different social networks you belong to, but actually pick up the odd couple of them and stick with them. Yes, indeed, the key success towards social networking tools adoption is actually focus and balance.

So that is why I am really happy to see that the two choices that I have picked up some time ago, LinkedIn and XING, are now the two social networking tools that GreaterIBM is making use of. Excellent stuff ! Time now to continue with that focus and balance and carry on building further up with those relationships and connections. Oh, and in case you are wondering here is my LinkedIn profile and my XING profile. Just in case you may want to drop by and say "Hi! Let’s connect!"