Linkedin is a marvelous tool for professionals. This is nothing new and given my limited readership, we probably are connected via Linkedin already.

Here are some personal rules I follow when using the tool:

1. Don’t collect connections
2. Only Connect with people you discussed or corresponded with and whom you feel are professionals
3. Connect with co-workers and former colleagues
4. Ignore invites from people you don’t know
5. Import your list of contacts to reconnect with former business partners
6. Recommend former colleagues but not current colleagues
7. Rarely ask for a recommendation and only if you already gave one some time before
8. Use a personal e-mail address for logging in, not a work e-mail address
9. Register any new e-mail address that you expect people to use now or in the future
10. Provide a summary and complete profile. Vendors, customers, former colleagues, future colleagues, and prospective recruits are likely to examine it before engaging in business with you.

I don’t see much value in groups or discussions. Unfortunately, signal to noise ratio is very low in those forums.

I religiously follow my connections’ updates and their new connections. This is great to find common colleagues or out of touch friends.

Please share with me your personal rules for Linkedin. I am always interested in learning new tricks.