Diasporas and LinkedIn

I read a nice article in The Economist last week entitled “The Magic of Diasporas”. And since I was in London going to an “Australian Business UK” function, it made me feel even more connected to my fellow Aussies. Diasporas are described by Wikipedia as “the movement, migration or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland”.

Anyway, the article mainly focused on the Chinese and Indian diasporas. There are 22 million Indians living outside India and more Chinese living and working outside of China (estimated at 83 million) than there are people in France! Closer to home, it is estimated that around 5% of Australians live overseas at anyone time. Diasporas are a major force in the world when you consider the fact that China isn’t just a country with borders any more, but a people spread over the world. 

The value of diasporas come down to three things:

1. They accelerate communication of ideas and opportunities between different locations.

2. They foster trust, as you would naturally prefer to do business with a countryman overseas.

3. They foster collaboration, as diasporas capitalise on opportunities between regions.

Although the article was fascinating, it wasn’t immediately useful to me, until I started thinking about what I termed mini-diasporas. More than once I have been a member of a large group of people that have each eventually gone their separate ways, spreading out through different regions and industries. I finished high school with around 180 others, graduated from University in a class of around 40, graduated from Officer School with a group of 14, and have been the member of a variety of different small businesses with staff from three to 180. So how do you take advantage of this? 

The answer of course is Linkedin. I would recommend to anyone joining LinkedIn to connect with their fellow employees. Although initially this wouldn’t seem to be of much use, my experience through managing a mailing list of a couple of thousand people is that the average person changes their job every two years. Therefore, by connecting with the people you currently work with, you are hooking into a network that will be wide flung within a couple of years. And by activating this network through regular updates on what you are up to, you gain mindshare with the people in it as you each find your own way.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club and Flinders Pacific. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Vietnam and is the sole Australian representative of the City of London for Foreign Direct Investment. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.