I was visiting LinkedIn and realized I hadn’t spent much time connect with folks within the groups to which I belong. Specifically, I was reading about folks in the two University of Dayton alumni groups on LinkedIn.

I’m from the UD class of 1986 which does not seem like twenty-three years, one wife, two kids and twenty five pounds ago, but it is.

While I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me – given the news for the past year – I was taken aback by all the UD graduates who are out of work…talented, experienced folks, not simply new graduates (who I’m sure are experiencing job search challenges too.

I’ve got very little to offer these University of Dayton folks who are out of a job right now, no magic pill or super advice.

But I do have my networks.

There’s my LinkedIn network, my Facebook, network, my extensive off-line professional network of colleagues, clients and friends. That’s another thing twenty-three years since graduating from college gets you.

So I posted in both University of Dayton LinkedIn groups the following:

Hi Folks:

I was reading through many of the LinkedIn bios of University of Dayton grads on both UD alumni groups and WOW, are a lot of alumni (talented, experienced UD grads) out of work. This sucks but I’m not willing to just ignore the problem without trying – even in a small way – to help.

I’m fortunate; my voiceover business is going well as is my marketing business. But I understand how hard lean times are so I’ll simply offer this:

IF any of you are in the fields of broadcasting, media, advertising, marketing or web and you want to connect with me, feel free. I’ll accept your connection – even if we never met on campus. You’re a UD grad and that’s good enough for me.

THEN if you need or want an introduction to anyone in my network, ask. I’ll set it up. I’ll open the door – your talent and knowledge will have to keep it open. But I am glad to help get you started.

If you’re in engineering or law (or some other major that didn’t mentioned), my connections simply aren’t as strong but if you think I can help…I will try.

I have no idea if this will work for you or not but the way I see it, it’s a start, it’s free and something good may come from it. In any event, I hope it helps.

Best always,
– Peter

I’ve already made one connection with a person looking for some help and if that’s the only success, then great.

It helped me remember that we are not helpless to help. We ALL have connections but we all don’t think about them and how they can help others (hey, all this just occurred to me today and we’ve been in an economic meltdown for more than a few months).

So my question to you is: what will you do to help? I don’t mean you helping UD grads, unless you want to. It can really be anybody.

But you have to reach out to them…they don’t know you can help. Sometimes, like in this example, it can be electronically by pressing a few buttons. You can find people to help at your school, your neighborhood, your church…or something else, you choose.

And it’s not a heavy load- all I promise is an introduction to someone in my network for people who have shared a common experience with me: we all graduated from the University of Dayton.

In this experience, all I needed to do was realize I could do something…and I did.

So can you, this is just a friendly reminder.

Tags: commentary, community, facebook, linkedin, social media, social networking // 2 Comments »