Professionals get linked in with Web site

Imagine being invited to an A-list business cocktail party.

Most of the top brass of America's Fortune 500 companies are there. Sen. John Kerry makes an appearance. British rocker James Blunt drops in to solicit support for a charity and gets $10,000. You run into many of the film world's writers and producers, plus former presidential speechwriters.

And guys such as Atlanta businessman Scott LaFata. He's a regular at these gatherings. The connections he's made have helped him find employees, start a new business venture and reunite with an old Dun & Bradstreet colleague.

"We'd lost touch through the years," said LaFata.

Welcome to LinkedIn, where the powerful and well-connected —- and those who want to be connected —- gather online.

Think of it as a twist on the six-degrees-of-separation theory. Better yet, it's a Rolodex with 9 million contacts.

LinkedIn is part of the have-it-your-way Internet phenomenon that's taking over popular culture and the workplace. It has become so pervasive that Time magazine christened it its "Person of the Year" in 2006. The magazine cited LinkedIn, along with YouTube, MySpace, Google and scores of other sites as the new world of the Web.

"We're basically witnessing a new industry being formed," said Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, a Harvard Business School assistant professor of business administration specializing in strategy.

Teenagers have social networking sites. Employment boards abound for the job seeker.

But a Web site for the business purist?

That's what Konstantin Guericke, a founder of the Web site, and four other business associates set out to do four years ago. One of the founders, Reid Hoffman, now LinkedIn's chief executive, is a former executive at PayPal.

"They were just looking at the inefficiencies in the business world," said Kay Luo, a spokeswoman for Palo Alto, Calif.-based LinkedIn. "They noticed that the most successful business deals and hires came through relationships. So they figured there must be a way to make that process of managing your relationships easier."

It's free to join the site, and you have the option of paying a monthly fee for access to more features. You log onto the site, then fill in some information about yourself, such as where and when you went to college and places you've worked.

Registered users keep lists of connections —- people they know and trust in business. The list becomes part of a network of other contacts that can be used to find jobs or old schoolmates and widen your contacts in your field.

Each person's network includes their direct connections, as well as those connections' contacts (second-degree connections) and the connections of second-degree connections (third-degree connections). Sort of the Internet's friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend list.

Skeptics disproved

The first of the year is the busiest period on the Web site as people look to change jobs or careers and just make changes in their lives, Luo said.

"More and more people realize that in order to facilitate their careers, they really have to show up on LinkedIn. If the person doesn't have a LinkedIn profile, that's (considered) very strange," said Piskorski, who has one of his own.

Not bad for a little company that six years ago wasn't supposed to make it, let alone be part of a sweeping trend.

"There was a time when people believed LinkedIn wasn't going to survive," said Piskorski, who has been tracking what he calls the "social industry" since its inception and has met LinkedIn's co-founders. "The restrictions they put on members was so draconian. Everybody thought everybody else had the right idea."

If you're on LinkedIn, you can only connect with someone if both sides agree, and no one can see your personal profile or your network of connections unless they're a certain degree of separation. The concept seems to work for LinkedIn and its members, Piskorski said.

"They basically figured out a system of how to improve something without destroying the real networking," Piskorski said.

Rigid profile format

The site is also big for what it is not. It is not about you and likes and dislikes; it's about what you've achieved. You won't find pictures of people and their friends here.

"There is very little flexibility on [how you create your] profile," said Piskorski, a LinkedIn member. "I don't particularly care about how you express yourself. I don't care if you have jumping rabbits across the screen."

Another big difference: recommendations.

"Recruiters pay a lot of attention to what other people say on LinkedIn," Piskorski said.

In the not-too-distant future, Piskorski predicts LinkedIn will evolve into the Internet world's much-needed referral service.

Need a good pediatrician? Lawyer? Nanny?

"It's using your trusted connections to get to their trusted connections," Luo said. "It's similar to asking a co-worker if they know anyone who works at United Airlines."

Which brings up the case of the frantic groom.

Seems his wedding party was stuck in France, having been booted off a United Airlines flight that was overbooked. The groom, a LinkedIn member, logged onto the site and found another member who happened to be United's general manager.

The manager stepped in and booked the group on the next flight to San Francisco —- in time for the wedding. He then called the groom to let him know the group was en route.

9 million users

It's perks like these, as well as the connections to a global Who's Who list, that have drawn more than 8 million registered users in 130 industries.

When PC magazine wrote about LinkedIn in 2004, there were more than 700 vice presidents, 500-plus chief executives and 140 chief technology officers among the 40,000 users at the time.

Those stats are just a dip in the networking ocean that is LinkedIn, Luo said.

"It's been great," said LaFata, 47, chairman of the board of Metavision Inc. in Atlanta. "I'm a serial entrepreneur. I start businesses and then get out of the way."

During a 30-year career that has taken him through management consulting and software development, LaFata has made a lot of connections —- particularly during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s —- and lost touch with some.

"The contacts fell apart in the technology arena," LaFata said. "E-mail was just starting, and there was no good way to keep in good touch with contacts I'd made. Everybody was carrying Palm Pilots, but you had to pick up the telephone to update your names and numbers.

"What I liked about LinkedIn is we can keep networks in place as long as they keep their profiles updated."

An old acquaintance saw LaFata online recently, and their reunion led to a business venture together. He's also hired three people based on recommendations he got on LinkedIn and made business deals worth millions based on LinkedIn connections.

'All walks of life'

Even though there's a lot of prominent people, the site is open to "all walks of life," said LaFata, who's made connections with people in Italy and Spain who are interested in business pursuits in the United States.

"It's also kind of cool for people just starting out in business," he said.

LaFata doesn't knock sites like MySpace and Facebook. He's also a member of MySpace, where he's found professional models and other individuals for various business ventures. But, he says,"it's not a professional-type Web site with qualifications."

The professionalism is something LinkedIn executives work hard to maintain.

"If you want to be social, go to MySpace or Facebook," Luo said. "LinkedIn is where business gets done."