In this digital age, we spend most of our time staring at the screens. Through computers and smartphones, we have immediate access to information and people across the globe. Little do we care to connect personally with the people we connect online. On one hand, spending long hours on the glowing screens has adverse effects on our mind and body, while on the other hand, socializing has various benefits. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher said, “Man by nature is a social animal”. This quote has been proven time and again by humans. However, with the increase in the use of social media, the traditional face to face communications have decreased tremendously.
The primary purpose of socializing is the exchange of knowledge, there are many communities that conduct various events focusing especially on socializing. This article is to enlighten you all about one such rapidly growing community – LinkedIn Local. It all started with an Australian businesswoman Ms. Anna McAfee, who thought of creating a community to connect with your LinkedIn contacts in person. Now, the factor that differentiated this community from other communities is that this is a cross-domain community where people from all industries come and share knowledge. The idea was to establish a community where people could meet their LinkedIn connections from their own vicinity. This would help enhance the missing face to face interactions, acquire knowledge about various industries and domains and ultimately to grow your network.
Soon after its inception, the #LinkedInLocal campaign started and it received a huge positive response from around the globe. The idea turned into a global movement and encouraged people to meet. The movement with around 1,00,000 members, spans 500 cities in 80 countries and is still growing. India holding 7.4% of share in the LinkedIn traffic, also showed a huge response to the movement. There have been a large number of meetups in India under the LinkedIn Local movement.
One of us Winjitian, Mr. Makrand Savarkar (Mak as we call him) happened to attend one such event in Pune which was hosted by Priya Dhawan. He was very impressed with the concept and he decided to take this event to an event in Nashik. Mak has successfully hosted the inaugural event of a LinkedIn local, Nashik which received a great response. The format of the meet up had interesting aspects that encouraged people to join. All the members had name badges to skip the introduction part. This way, anyone can walk up to someone and initiate a conversation. The meet up is scheduled keeping in mind the attendee’ work priorities. Interactive activities are designed/planned for the members along with expert talks on interesting topics. The meet ups are planned diligently to not disturb anyone’s work schedule and to keep the attendees encouraged to attend further events. The event’ strict policy of “No marketing only networking” makes people more comfortable. The participants gain knowledge about topics from diverse domains, the topics are of general interest and manage to keep the audience indulged. Being a cross-domain platform, LinkedIn Local gives its attendees a good exposure to diverse domains.
Do check out the event responses here.
We hope this article must have encouraged you to join the LinkedIn Local movement. Happy socializing !!!
Check out LinkedIn Local-global community here
Check out the LinkedIn Local India community here
Know more about LinkedIn Local Nashik community here