The developers at LinkedIn were at it again on Hackday and have created a new way to view your career path over time via your connections. Through your career you have certainly met some pretty memorable folks whom you may have lost touch with. The Connection Timeline is a good kickstart to go and see if they are an active member on LinkedIn and connect or if you are already connected to pop your head over and catch up.
LinkedIn Connection Timeline
The Connection Timeline is a roadmap of your career and those that you connected with at your various employers throughout the years. LinkedIn is always being compared to Facebook and Twitter and differentiating is what continues to provide value to their users. The connection timeline is no different as LinkedIn is based upon time. As a professional networking platform, it showcases your accomplishments and career; your online resume. The component of time makes LinkedIn three dimensional and puts a lot into perspective. We know that we are not always on top of viewing our profile and see it how others will. The connection timeline is a fun interactive graphic that really shows you what others can interpret when they look at your profile, your employment history and with whom you are connected. A lack of connections could have some meaning; or not. It could be as easy as they are just not on LinkedIn or you just never connected. Strange as we should connect with people we worked with first, right?
Connection Timeline Benefits
At first glance, it did not seem to really be beneficial other than remembering those that I had worked with. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Wow, have you sought out everyone that you have worked with and received recommendations? OH! If you are like me, that is a NO! Not everyone would provide a recommendation and let's face it, some you would never want to (especially if your relationship was less than stellar). I went through mine, I realized that it was pretty empty. I was a bit shocked by this to be honest as I know I have connected with previous colleagues but as my profile photo scrolled along, there was no denying that my connections are not with those that I had worked with prior to starting Kherize5 in 2006. It should be noted that this was malfunctioning quite a bit as some of the photos were just on a free fall and floated by faster than Usain Bolt.
Go ahead, go and see yours and let us know what you find. Your LinkedIn Connection Timeline