My friend Rachel Brozenske of Allison Partners turned me on to a fun little tool: LinkedIn Maps — a visual way to look at your business network and examine areas for saturation, room for growth and the overlap or gaps among you and your business development team.
Here’s my map — clickety to see the BIG version:
That great big blue cloud represents contacts I have in Charlottesville, Va. — the place where I’ve been doing business since January, 2006. The big orange cloud on the right are my contacts and clients from the time I spent with Standing Partnership in St. Louis, Mo. Other clusters represent client contacts or contacts from employers past.
Get your own map, and learn a little something about the connections you’ve made.
I’m so glad that you’ve been enjoying LinkedIn Maps, Marijean. For me, one of the most interesting “ah-has” from seeing a picture of my network was being able to see more clearly the people and groups for whom I can serve as a connector. Seeing how you link that big cloud of folks in Charlottesville and your network at Standing Partnership shows me that you’re a valuable resource for connecting folks who otherwise might not intersect. That’s pretty cool. (Then again, we always knew you were cool…no LinkedIn Map needed to figure that out.)