Tips for 3D Students: Networking - Linked In

Linked In - The Network Multiplier

Linked In is an awesome resource website I dscovered from one of my instructors at the Center for Arts and Technology. It basicly ats as an advanced interactive address book that lets you see up to 3 levels of contacts and promotes you on the internet at the same time. This is one website that I highly advize anyone interested in the Gaming industry or Computer Graphic industry to take a look at and create an account.

When you create an account on Linked In, one of the first things you can do is take all your email/address book contacts and either find their related Linked In account or invite them to create one. This is especially powerful when you've finished the Email Interviews from the last article, because you'll have all those industry proffesionals' contact information; most of the ones I emailed had a corresponding Linked In account.

As you add contacts, you will also get "2nd level" and "3rd level" contacts. This boils down to your contacts' friends and then their contacts, sort of a friend of a friend idea. This system is especially cool because you can use your existing contacts to have yourself "introduced" to their contacts and grow your network through the website (without annonymously emailing the person).

The benefit of this system becomes apparant once you have 8 or more contacts, as you'll find that you have thousands of people in the industry just a simple click and introduction away.

Apart from the network expanding capabilities of Linked In, it also has some really nice features that comes with it and if you're serious about building your network effectively, join me and many others at Linked In:
Here's my profile on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/zandererasmus

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