I know I hear you cry, this is available already within LinkedIn, so why now bring this facility in to LinkedIn groups ?  Well it provides a great way to spark of conversations within the group and also to gain really quick insights in to your members.  For example I run a Golf Networking group for Directors across the North West of England and I might want a view from the members as to which golf course to play next.  Polls allows me to quickly and easily request this information, without the need to message all group members or rely on them commenting on a conversation that I start.

I can also see that as with Polls elsewhere in LinkedIn, you can utilise this tool as a means of gathering useful information for your business, so effectively performing market research.   So for example, we provide LinkedIn training seminars across the UK and I might want to target specific groups and start a poll in terms of where would you next like to see a LinkedIn training seminar ?  And provide a list of cities across the UK.

If you are a group owner then this facility comes with all of the controls available with other areas of functionality, so you can control who can start polls within your group.

LinkedIn have recently relaunched their cardmunch services which takes your business cards and converts them in to digital format, as well as pulling additional information from the LinkedIn database.

Cardmunch is available for use on your smartphone and I can certainly advice that my experience with using the iPhone version of the app is that it’s very straightforward and very fast at digitising the information. This is also backed by the fact that to date over 2 million business cards have now been digitised using cardmunch.

So head over to the App store and download then you to can start to digitise your business cards, ensuring that details of a key contact are not lost.

It’s amazing how these theories stay within your mind and how during your career that you realise that you are subconsciously utilising them and also the reality of the actual situations that you encounter within the working environment either prove or disprove these theories.

Both theories in my view play a real importance with regards to building teams, managing teams and most importantly, ensuring that the team feels motivated.

With Maslow, his hierarchy of needs, helps us to understand the key elements that every human being requires to ensure a feeling of as he puts it “self actualisation” or in my view self worth.  If you apply each of the following element to the work place then these are my thoughts in terms of how they are addressed:

• Physiological – these are the basic human needs such as food, water, shelter and clothing.
• Safety – this is with regards to ensuring that a person feels that their job is safe that they have job security.
• Love and belonging – this is key to a teams success, creating a sense that each members contribution is valuable, thus ensuring that that individual feels part of the team (they belong to the team).
• Esteem – this is the humans desire to be accepted or valued by others.  So as a manager and I follow this golden rule – it cost’s nothing to make sure that an individual is thanked for their contribution or simply told that they have produced an excellent piece of work.

• Motivation factors – challenging work, recognition, job enrichment, job rotation, personal growth
• Hygiene factors – job status, job security, salary, fringe benefits and work conditions

I always work on the basis that in terms of his theory that Motivation factors are the absolute key to getting the most out of individuals or teams.  However, you still have to address the hygiene factors, although their contribution to satisfaction are very short lived.  Although ignoring them, you do so at your peril.  I say short-lived, since being given a different job title or indeed an increase in salary, will only result in that individual feeling an “increased spring in their step,” for maybe a day or two.  Whereas if an individual feels challenged through their work and knows that they are supported by you as their manager then that is what keeps them motivated, which then has a knock on effect to their’s and others input in to the overall teams success.

Our book has been really well received since being published in August 2011 and regularly features within the top 5 on Amazon Kindle charts in terms of those books covering the subject of LinkedIn.

The book takes you on a journey and works on the basis that you are a LinkedIn newbie.  Describing how to setup a basic profile and then enhance to take advantage of some of those not so well known features to help market yourself or yourself and company.  Discussing the subject of Search Engine Optimisation and why its important to have a presence on this fantastic Professional Network.

So don’t hesitate, take advantage of this one day offer by following the link and download your free copy today.

We hope that you enjoy and would really appreciate any review / comments you would like to leave us on the Amazon website, oh and don’t forget to “Like” the book as well.

So for the whole of December, you are able to purchase this best selling book at a 15% discount.

The book is available worldwide through the Amazon stores, select the appropriate link below based on wherever in the world you are located:

UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005H2SNSW

France - http://www.amazon.fr/dp/B005H2SNSW

Germany - http://www.amazon.de/dp/B005H2SNSW

USA / Canada - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005H2SNSW

Italy - http://www.amazon.it/dp/B005H2SNSW

Spain - http://www.amazon.es/dp/B005H2SNSW

We hope that you enjoy the book and have a really enjoyable Christmas break.  And if your New Year Resolution is to find a new job or embark on a new career or indeed look to promote your company then our book provides you with all the tools that you need.

Happy Christmas and all the best for 2012 from the Intelipad team.

The new reports provide LinkedIn group admins with some great reporting tools so that they can easily see the demographical information related to their group.

The group statistics are accessible from within the more option of your LinkedIn group and their are currently 4 different types of report.

- Summary
- Demographics
- Growth
- Activity

Lets explore the demographics report in more detail. Since this report breaks out further in to Seniority, Function, Location and Industry. This is a great option since you are now able to see really easily the make up of your group. And confirm that you have the right target audience or at least are attracting the right target audience. For example I run a group for Directors within the North West of England, who have an interest in networking whilst enjoying a game of golf. So I am now able to confirm that I am attracting the right level in terms of seniority. It’s also interesting to be able to determine the kinds of industries these individuals cover and also where they are located. So if you take my example again of the Directors Golf Networking group, then I am able to target the playing of golf courses within the right geographical area for my group audience.

If you are a group admin then I would encourage you take a look at the statistics, since they are a really powerful addition and should help you to target your discussions, along with any specific Internet marketing campaigns.

I’d be really interested to learn how you are using these statistics and how useful you’ve found this exciting new analysis tool from LinkedIn.

Intelipad’s work to assist final year students at The University of Bolton has received coverage within the Business section of the Bolton News.

The event is set to take place on 3rd November 2011 and it is hoped that this will be the start of a long lasting relationship with the University.

Julie Bateman, the University’s Head of Careers said “There has never been a more important time to invest in careers advice, support and guidance”

Mark Leyland, Intelipad’s Managing Director said “Anyone who thinks that LinkedIn is only for professionals is mistaken.  LinkedIn is a professional network of more than 100 million people and it offers a wealth of opportunities for securing first roles.”  This is all part of Intelipad’s strategy to help students gain a competitive advantage in securing their first job.

LinkedIn mobile is available as an app for iPhone, Blackberry, Windows mobile and Android phones, offering similar functionality across all platforms.

LinkedIn did a big overhaul to all of these apps across the various platforms in the last few months, making them a lot more feature rich. By adding the ability to view LinkedIn today, update discussions or view discussions on groups. However they did remove some functionality, one area being the ability to at the press of a button download all your LinkedIn connections to your phones address book.

This post is about looking at what improvements I would personally like to see added into the next revision of the app.

The reintroduction of the ability to download your LinkedIn connections to your phones address book would be a great start.

I would also like to have the ability to approve membership requests for groups that I administer. This could be achieved in much the same way as you approve someone’s endorsement, from within the LinkedIn inbox. Or could be available from within the groups option, only displaying the appropriate button for the groups that you administer.

The real key from my perspective is the introduction of the “answers” functionality. It would be a real plus if I were able to search through LinkedIn users questions, to see if I can provide an appropriate answer – so sharing my expertise and knowledge. The ability to do this from within the mobile app would be hugely beneficial, since if you commute by public transport or find yourself with some spare time during the day. You could then share your knowledge, since you will always have your mobile with you and help out a fellow user – as well as helping to increase your visibility within the LinkedIn network.

I would be interested to find out what you would like to see in the next revision of the app and I’ll pass on to LinkedIn. Wouldn’t it be great to see our suggestions incorporated in to the next revision ? So get your thinking caps on and comment away.

The lunchtime seminar was attended by Personal Assistants from companies across the North West.

The LinkedIn training focused on how these individuals could utilise the power of LinkedIn to harness and support their ever expanding roles.

Covering how to research companies, participate in groups, personal branding and company branding, along with personal and company profiles.

The event was well attended and the feedback received to date has been extremely positive, with delegates commenting on how useful they found the seminar and how many of them couldn’t wait to get back to their offices to try out their new found expertise on LinkedIn.

We hope that this is the first of many seminars in association with the Angela Mortimer group.

This is a great way to keep your followers up to date with the latest company news, special offers and blog posts.  It is yet another great way to engage on LinkedIn and should be embraced by companies of all sizes.

To start using this great new feature, you need to navigate to your company profile and select edit from within the admin tools.  You’ll then need to setup designated admins.  On confirming the admins, LinkedIn will then update your company profile, on the overview tab, with a status update window.

So, now is your chance to start posting updates about your company, so that your followers are kept up to date.  However, since your company posts are shown on those individuals profile’s then their wider network will also get to see them, so you are able to spread the word further and further afield across the LinkedIn network.

Your updates don’t just have to be text based you can link out to photos and YouTube videos, which create a great visual way to quickly and concisely update.

Why not follow our company and be kept up to date on our latest LinkedIn training or industry expertise with regards to Project Management, Programme Office Management or SAP.  We look forward to welcoming you to our LinkedIn company profile page and continuing to engage with you.