No, no, not to your upcoming social event–I’m talking about a LinkedIn invitation to join your professional network.

When I was first introduced to LinkedIn I thought it was a scam! It wasn’t until a very trusted friend invited me to join, I checked it out and realized the potential professional benefit.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, it is a very popular networking site for people to maintain their professional contacts while also making new connections, finding jobs, people and business opportunities and to asking and answering questions related to your work. According to Wikipedia as of October 2007, it had more than 15 million registered users, spanning 150 industries and more than 400 economic regions.

How have I used it?

For me it has solved an on-going problem I had with maintaining my professional network. Although I am good at initially collecting contact information, I’m not very good at regular follow-up. At times, when I did need to reconnect with someone I would spend much wasted time trying to find current contact information. With this system everyone maintains their own information and when contacts in your network make changes, you automatically have the updates! For me, that functionality alone was a big enough benefit for me to join the network.

But it much more than that! Recently, through LinkedIn, I was able to not only find out that one of my old bosses moved to a new company. Then just two days later, serendipitously he contacted me about a potential business opportunity in my local area.

I also have used it to expand my business in the South San Fransisco biotechnology cluster. Just before my last trip to deliver a seminar at Standford University, I used LinkedIn to offer a few free seats to industry professionals. This way, they got a some free training and I had the potential of follow-on business at their company. It worked! I was recently contacted to deliver a few workshops over the next few months for a pharmaceutical company in that area as a result of those previous seminars.

Just last week, I contacted someone in my local area because I was intrigued with his professional skill set. Since we were close, he invited me for coffee and during our short meeting we decided to barter for our respective services.

Finally, one of my main goals for using LinkedIn is to benefit YOU! Yes, you! The folks that come to my seminars and read this blog. I would like to be able to help you expand your professional networks. I want to be able to help science professionals make connections–especially in today’s very competitive job market– to help you obtain your “dream job”.

So I invite you to send me an invitation to join your network. As I spread the word at my seminars and workshops, I expect that my network will grow quite extensively. If you haven’t joined yet, please at least check it out. If you are already a member, please send me an invitation to join your network. Be sure to mention you “met” me via my blog!

Oh, if you just want to check out my profile on linked in…here it is.

View Lisa B. Marshall’s profile

Use lisabmarshall {AT} gmail {DOT} com to send me an invitation to join your professional network!

If you’ve had some success at using this networking tool, leave a comment below.