I received an interesting email from LinkedIn today.  As I thought about the implications of its content, the only word that kept popping into my head was: BRILLIANT!  (Yes it was all in capitals.)

The email was an announcement of “the Week of Learning” on LinkedIn, and was essentially an invitation to a free trial of LinkedIn’s new venture – the provision of professional development services.  This new addition to LinkedIn’s offerings is the result of last year’s acquisition of lynda.com, and allows LinkedIn to apply the considerable data it has collected about its members to offer them personalized learning options.

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So, why do I think it’s a “BRILLIANT!” move on LinkedIn’s part?

Because they already have a wide range of data about their members’ professional lives, including job titles, job histories, skills, interests, education, etc.  They can now apply this data to filtering through the thousands of courses and nearly 200,000 video tutorials available through Lynda.com, to offer relevant suggestions. More importantly, they can use their data to identify skills and knowledge relevant to each career path and apply that to their suggestions.

Think of it this way: LinkedIn already likely has a good profile of you and a fairly good idea of your likely career path, they also know about people who are further along that path than you – their skills and education.  They thus know which skills you will likely need in order to advance, and they will be quite happy to let you know which of their courses might be helpful to furthering your career.   How much would you be willing to pay for that sort of insight and guidance?

The other aspect of this venture that made “BRILLIANT!” pop into my head, is the fact that your LinkedIn profile is independent of your current job – it is your online resume.  Consider the possibility that your current employer encourages you to do your professional development through LinkedIn’s new portal (my employer has a Lynda.com subscription, yours might too).  Completion of various such courses can be easily tracked and verified by LinkedIn, and evidence can be displayed on your profile (your resume).  In other words, the professional development you do through one employer is verifiable and easily seen by your next employer.

While promotional materials about the new learning portal don’t specifically mention any sort of badges that might be earned, LinkedIn has been allowing its users to add certifications to their profiles for a few years now, and Lynda.com was one of the top participants in this program.  So, a way for you to showcase participation in professional development through LinkedIn’s new venture is very likely.