Editor’s Note: Building Excellent Schools is part of the LinkedIn Board Member Connect program which helps nonprofit leaders easily identify connections to potential board members. Sign up for the next LinkedIn Board Member Connect webinar on February 7th.

On the first Sunday morning of 2013, I found myself in the inaugural meeting of the founding board of directors for a proposed public charter school. Seated around a long table in a sunshine-filled conference room, the six board members introduced themselves, and over plates of eggs, black beans, and rice, shared how they had come to join the team. One by one, each thanked the proposed school’s founder for inviting them to join the board, and one member thanked LinkedIn. Exchanging a knowing glance and chuckle with his colleagues around the table, the member reminded us that every individual on this board had been identified through an exhaustive search on LinkedIn.

I work for an organization called Building Excellent Schools (BES). Through our one-year Fellowship, BES supports entrepreneurs to design, found, lead, and sustain excellent charter schools in underserved communities nationwide. As the Director for Governance and Board Development, I am responsible for ensuring that each BES Fellow identify, vet, and invite 7-9 members to their proposed school’s founding board of directors.

Founding board members of BES charter schools must believe in our mission, commit the time necessary to found an organization, be dedicated to the community, and contribute to the board’s diversity. At BES, we believe that diverse boards function more effectively and are better stewards of the public trust. We seek diversity in the areas of professional expertise and seniority, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and sometimes, language.

Anyone who recruits board members (or any talent for that matter) knows that, at the end of the day, identifying the right people is all about networking. My challenge at BES–and, frankly, what makes my work exciting–is that every year, I work collaboratively with the Fellows to build 8 to 12 boards simultaneously, in multiple cities, ideally within the first three months of the Fellowship year, and with limited time and contacts on the ground. More than a third of the individuals we have invited and confirmed for charter school boards this year were first identified through LinkedIn. LinkedIn has become an essential tool that allows us to:

1. Organize and access existing networks. By finding and connecting on LinkedIn with people they already knew–including each other–the Fellows discovered that their networks were much larger than they thought. Fellows connected with past supervisors, former classmates, and colleagues. As their boards began to take shape, they also connected with their new board members.
2. Expand our networks. By browsing the connections and affiliations of their contacts, Fellows were able to identify and learn about the key individuals, companies, and organizations in their cities. They also joined alumni, corporate affinity, and other Groups to find individuals in their cities who shared their interests and backgrounds.
3. Handpick prospects. Within the first week of the Fellowship, I trained Fellows to use LinkedIn Advanced Search and Profiles to hone in on individuals who met specific criteria. For example, Fellows used Advanced Search to locate senior-level legal professionals who speak Spanish and who work for a major employer in their city. They then evaluated the Profiles to learn more about the individuals, their professional background, and Causes they care about.

Alongside more traditional recruitment strategies, LinkedIn opens the door to outstanding board prospects who we can evaluate further through background research and in-person interviews.

Consider one of the charter school boards we recently built in a southern city. As is typical, the Fellow leading the founding of this proposed school was new to the city, and due to the intensity of the training and travel associated with the BES Fellowship, had limited time on the ground. In his words,

“LinkedIn helped me get to know my city before I actually got on the ground.  Seeing the major employers, clubs and professional organizations that tied together the community gave me a sense of where I could look to find people who would be interested in our work.  LinkedIn profiles helped me to determine how an individual’s background and professional interests might translate into support for the school.”

Five of the nine board members confirmed for the charter school being proposed by this Fellow were identified through LinkedIn. The founding board held its inaugural meeting in December 2012, just three months after the start of the BES Fellowship. Another board built. Another opportunity to found a school that will transform lives.

Read more great blog posts on LinkedIn

We recently crossed an important and exciting milestone for the company. LinkedIn now counts over 200 million members as part of our network, with representation in more than 200 countries and territories. We serve our members in 19 languages around the world.

I’d like to thank each of you for helping build the LinkedIn network into what it is today. It’s been amazing to see how our members have been able to transform their professional lives through LinkedIn. You truly grasp the power of LinkedIn when you start to focus on these individual success stories.

Take for example, Akshay Chaturvedi from New Delhi, India who was able to use LinkedIn as a launch pad for his career. Not only was he able to lead an international project at AIESEC for a project on AIDS right out of university, with the help of LinkedIn, he was recruited by KPMG and continues to receive career guidance from his LinkedIn network. Then there’s Robyn Shulman who stepped out of her comfort zone from teacher to now a published writer and leader of a ESL Bilingual Educators group on LinkedIn. She has rediscovered former talents and  changed her life through LinkedIn. One of my favorite stories comes from Leonardo Brant from Brazil who founded Cemec, an organization to help Brazilian professionals and entrepreneurs think creatively about their business challenges. Today they use LinkedIn as their digital classroom to exchange information and foster a meaningful community to share relevant knowledge. Everyday we hear stories like these from our members and we look forward to hearing many more.

So, who are LinkedIn’s 200 million members? This infographic captures the diversity and magic of  your professional peers.

This milestone is more than just a metric — it’s a reminder of  the global footprint and the scale of impact our network has each day. Members come first at LinkedIn and we remain focused on creating economic opportunity for every professional in the world. We look forward to bringing the power of the LinkedIn network to many more professionals in the coming years.

Editor’s Note: If you have a success story to share, please leave a comment on our LinkedIn Company Page. If you need more inspiration, check out our Member Stories blog series.

Read more great blogs on LinkedIn

Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of posts on how applications like TripIt are integrating with LinkedIn. Here’s Heather Forsythe from TripIt on how you can share travel plans on LinkedIn.

Have you ever found out that you were in the same city as an old colleague, after it’s too late to make plans? Well, sharing your travel plans with your professional network is now easier than ever when you connect your LinkedIn profile with your TripIt account.

TripIt makes getting there easier, by organizing all your travel plans in one place. Simply forward your travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and we’ll create a master itinerary with all your important travel details. It’s a new way to travel smarter, by having everything with you on-the-go.

By linking your TripIt account to your LinkedIn profile, you can automatically share your travel plans in the main network updates feed, making it easier to coordinate with business connections. Whether it’s a meeting invitation or restaurant recommendation, TripIt and LinkedIn can uncover opportunities you may not have learned about otherwise.

Don’t have your TripIt account linked to your LinkedIn profile yet? Don’t worry, it’s easy! Learn more about connecting your accounts.

Happy travels!

As we approach 2013, it is time again for the LinkedIn team to refresh our popular buzzwords analysis from previous years. Do members still describe themselves as “creative” and “effective” professionals with “extensive experience” or did the most overused words in LinkedIn Profiles change from last year’s analysis? When we ran the analysis in 2011, we had 135 million members [Read more...]

Ahh, Vegas – the sights, the sounds, the smells. It’s an exciting place year-round, but never more so for us than this week when a team led by Tejal Patel, Catherine Gutermuth, and I host almost 2,000 of our incredibly inspiring customers at Talent Connect. [Read more...]

A few weeks ago, we launched our newly redesigned LinkedIn Company Pages with select companies to make it easier for you to find, follow and engage with companies you’re interested in. Today, we’re excited to roll out this new experience to the more than 2 million companies who have LinkedIn Company Pages. As part of this roll out, we’re also introducing the Featured Update functionality, a new way for companies to highlight important content by promoting it to the top of their Company Updates stream. To learn more about the new Company Page, visit us at: marketing.linkedin.com/companypages. Here’s a slideshow of companies that are making the most of their newly designed pages:

By now you should be experiencing a newer, simpler, and more modern LinkedIn homepage. We designed your new homepage to be an everyday destination where you can discover and discuss what matters to you most. Here are four simple ways you can use your new LinkedIn homepage to stay up to date with your professional network:
1. Build your brand.  Share status updates with your network regularly. Whether it is a thought provoking article you just read on LinkedIn Today, a conference you’re planning to attend, or a question you’ve been pondering, each status update helps you define your personal brand.
2. Get informed. Your LinkedIn homepage is the go-to place for the most important conversations and articles. Not only can you stay on top of what news is buzzing in your industry, you can also check out professional changes in your network from job changes to work anniversaries and share your congrats right from the homepage stream.
3. Be a part of the professional conversation. Stay connected to your network by liking or commenting on their status updates. Comment on an article your connection just shared or join an interesting Groups discussion your colleagues are participating in. Our new Notifications feature makes it easier to keep interesting discussions going with your network. By regularly participating in these conversations, you will be top of mind when your connections have relevant opportunities.
4. Build your network before you need it. The best time to reach out to someone is when you don’t need something from them, so start connecting now with people you may know. At LinkedIn, we’re committed to helping you be great at what you do so stay tuned for more tips and tricks on how you can make the most of LinkedIn. If you have topics to suggest for future blog posts, please let us know on our LinkedIn Company Page or on Twitter @LinkedIn.

LinkedIn inDay is a special day each month when employees are encouraged to work on inspirational projects and invest in our career paths. These days give us time to think, to take a breath, and to step back for a day with our peers. In September, the inDay theme was “Discovery”. Our team in Singapore decided it would be a great opportunity to learn from one another. We had over 40 employees in a conference room sharing information and learning about each department’s goals and missions. What happened next was truly inspiring. We were all participating in a game of question and answer with a $100 gift card on the line. At the end, when all was said and done, instead of indulging in an office shopping spree, the team collectively decided to donate the money to charity. The gift cards went to a teenager with autism supported by hardworking parents who take on multiple jobs to support his special needs and his two siblings. I was stunned by their generosity, kindness and sincere goodness. Their actions reminded me of my decision to join LinkedIn and reaffirmed my belief that working for the right company is absolutely fundamental to a company’s success and professional career growth. At LinkedIn, we call this “connecting talent with opportunity”. Allen Blue, LinkedIn’s co-founder, said recently at an APAC all hands meeting that “we want to change the way business is done for the benefit of the world”.  Such a statement is not uncommon from the LinkedIn leadership team. Yet, what is most inspiring is that this mission continues to permeate our culture and across the seas, even as we grow so quickly. LinkedIn InDay, LinkedIn’s Veterans Initiatives and LinkedIn Board Connect are three distinct ways LinkedIn is demonstrating its desire to “change the way business is done for the benefit of the world” while empowering employees along the way.

On LinkedIn, you have many smart, talented, and skilled professional connections. Starting today, we are introducing Endorsements, a new feature that makes it easier to recognize them for their skills and expertise. With just one click, you can now endorse your connections for a skill they’ve listed on their profile or recommend one they haven’t added yet. Think your connection is great at programming AND project management? Let them know! Here’s how you can endorse your connections:

• On the top of a connection’s profile, you’ll see recommended endorsements for them. You can suggest additional skills as well.
• You can also endorse them from the new Skills & Expertise section that now showcases these endorsements.

Want to see who has endorsed you? We’ll notify you via email and on LinkedIn whenever you are endorsed. You can  scroll to the bottom of your profile page under “Skills and Expertise” to see the faces of people who think you’re great at what you do. You can also accept any new skills recommended by your peers that you may not have thought to include on your profile. Or you can also add a new skill by clicking on “add a skill” on your profile page.  Check out how it works: It just takes one click. So go ahead, endorse your connections for their skills and help them show off their professional prowess.