LinkedIn Gems

I’m on LinkedIn, complete with profile, recommendation, picture and memberships in various LinkedIn groups, neatly selected to feed my different areas of interests. Needless to say, the latter keep my mailbox busy. With daily or weekly digests, there are always some discussions, comments, news and links that need to be shared. While this may be clogging up my mailbox from time to time (I heartily admit that I spent at least an hour each day going through these emails), I have found the odd information gems in the forms of interesting people to connect with, blogs and websites to check out, and new knowledge to keep my brain cells alive.

These gems aren’t always just of value to myself but also and often more so for my wider network of family, friends and colleagues. There may be someone looking for a service or product, and you may just happen to have the right contact for them, or someone shares where to publish your first e-book and you know that one of your closest friends had been considering this for the past months. Sometimes, of course, I do also stumble across a contribution that should have better been left un-posted, or a discussion that turned rather heated. So the selection below constitutes an eclectic array of all of the above – enjoy the sparkle!

Socially responsible sparkle: Give Family a Break

Go on a break and support a good cause – if that doesn’t make you feel good, I don’t know what will! From 1 to 30 August, you can bid for $1 reserve accommodation and dining options throughout New Zealand’s InterContinental  Hotels Group (IHG) to raise money for the Salvation Army on www.sella.co.nz/ihgsalvationarmy. The money raised will help up to 40 disadvantaged New Zealand families have a one-week holiday this coming summer.

Request sparkle

As stated in the introduction above, many LinkedIn users are looking for information or resources. Rosemarie Begbie, owner at Enterprising Women, a networking group for women that are running their own businesses in New Zealand, is looking for inspiring women speakers. This has sparked a long list of valuable responses for Rosemarie, and an invitation to come along to a Zonta group meeting. It looks like Wellington women in business can look forward to a number of interesting networking events!

Twitter sparkle: Oldest Twitter user passed away

Ivy Bean, an English lady who was widely considered to be the oldest Twitter user, died at the age of 104. She had over 56,000 followers on Twitter, and she was also an avid user of Facebook.

Regional sparkle: New Courses at the Business Centre, Wellington

Gabby Simpson, Operations Manager at the Business Centre in Wellington, announces the centre’s upcoming courses and events for August (what’s left of it) and September. TACTICS has been partnering with the Business Centre and we just offered a couple of free one-hour workshops in Wellington. If you missed out this time, sign up for our newsletter on our website and we’ll keep you posted.

Now it’s your time to shine – send me a comment to share your LinkedIn gems (or grime) with me.
Dorit