This Guest Post is written by The LinkedIn Rock Star himself, Mike O'Neil
It starts with about 200 schools and my alma mater, Arizona State University, is one of them. The school already has over 180,000 “followers” on the company page and that includes me.
The opportunity for Universities, who already have company pages, to have an academic presence on LinkedIn is a huge benefit, not only for the university, but for LinkedIn to continue the uptick in attraction to faculty and students…
That’s story #1, but story #2 may be even bigger.
Now, for the first time, LinkedIn will permit individuals under 18 to become members, AS YOUNG AT 14! That’s right, junior high kids can now join you and your fellow business professionals on LinkedIn.
What?
Junior high school students, who are so well known for their online conduct (NOT!), can now share the LinkedIn professional network just like “we” can. Run that by me again!
Now you could potentially hear about who “likes” who in a whole new way. The word DORK will now yield greater search results on LinkedIn. (Yes, Dork is already a keyword on LinkedIn with 818 results as of this morning, including a few people unlucky enough to have this as a first or last name.)
Just as teens are spending less time on Facebook and more time on Instagram and Fmylife (yes, its real), they can now explore LinkedIn and reach out to the broader world.
The Huffington Post broke the story this and I could not contain myself.
OK, it may be inevitable that 16 year olds will be welcomed. We all know about that young “whippersnapper” who has the next big thing, the web developer extraordinaire.
Frankly, my favorite movie is Almost Famous where a 15 year old travels with the fictitious band Stillwater (a fusion of Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers Band) to do a feature story that even makes it to the “Cover of The Rolling Stone”, but LINKEDIN????
My wonderful son Brendan is 15 and the thought of him on LinkedIn alongside my friends and clients at Verizon, Cisco and 3M just blows me away. At least he has an excellent coach!
IN all fairness, we do know a few young people on LinkedIn; true entrepreneurial teens who are already on their own path to make their mark on the business world. But still, as a general policy?
What are YOUR thoughts? Is 14 too young? 16?
