Sat, 22/03/2008 - 12:23 — peterv

Update: Now 1 December 2010, around 600 members.

Today (that was March 2008) the LeuvenValley group on LinkedIn got over 100 members. Statistics about the link I personally have with the members:

  • direct links: 51
  • 2nd level links: 41
  • 3rd level links: 11
  • Total: 103

To me, especially the 50% links to people that I do not know personally (the 2nd and 3rd level links) are relevant. These are mainly people active in other fields of business: R&D, medical, legal, car rental, auditors, manufacturing, ...

And this was exactly the purpose, to have just another level of linking, on a regional level, but cross industry to other LinkedIn users that would not easily find each other through direct links.

I did not see other regional groups of this type in Flanders, so this might be the right time to set-up similar regional networks in other economic regions in Flanders?

The amount of work for setting it up is limited. I have personally checked the professional link with the region Leuven for all members, by reading the LinkedIn profile of all members and asking clarification when in doubt. IIRC about 10% of the requests need some explanation and for about 5% of the requests I do not grant the membership (these are typically "serial networkers" that request membership from some far away country and then don't even reply to my e-mail request for clarification). Over 90% of requests for membership are genuine and take only 1 minute to handle.