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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Purdue baseball had the opportunity to tour the LinkedIn headquarters and learn more about the benefits of professional networking on its first off day of the team's spring break trip in California.
Purdue alumnus and director of operations John Madia arranged the visit for the team. LinkedIn is a business and employment-oriented social networking website and app. It launched in May 2003 and has 467 million accounts as of September 2016. It's headquartered in the South Bay area of Northern California, where the Boilermakers arrived Monday night for the second half of their spring break trip.
LinkedIn employees Ben Ortman and Tanner Trosper both took time to interact with the Purdue student-athletes. Ortman and Trosper are former college and professional ballplayers. Ortman played at the University of Portland and was an outfielder in the Colorado Rockies organization in the mid-90s. Trosper played collegiately at Cal Poly and was a pitcher in the Oakland A's organization in the early-00s.
Lauren Taddune, head of executive engagement, provided a broad overview of LinkedIn as well as value propositions for the student-athletes. This included outlining the LinkedIn vision of "to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce," general insight of the uses and capabilities of a LI profile, and the vast importance of a networking as a person builds his or her career.
Ortman, who leads LinkedIn's global sales, joined the meeting from Chicago via videoconference. His message to the Purdue players focused on "baseball to hi-tech," utilizing the attributes learned and developed from playing college baseball to differentiate themselves in business. Developing perseverance, determination and resiliency to create a competitive advantage in the business world were the pillars of his presentation. Ortman also used the baseball analogy of having to constantly make adjustments to play the game at a high level as something that directly translates to the business world.
Trosper also works in sales and client development for LinkedIn. He served as the tour host and reinforced many of the messages heard from Ortman as well as emphasizing the need to "find your passion" both during the college experience and as student-athletes enter the work force after graduation. Trosper spent a great deal of time answering specific questions from the Boilermakers as they toured the LinkedIn campus. He also took part in the LI-hosted lunch at the campus cafe.
LinkedIn allows users (workers and employers) to create profiles and "connections" to each other in its online social network, which may represent real-world professional relationships. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. The "gated-access approach," in which contact with any professional requires either an existing relationship or the intervention of a contact of theirs, is intended to build trust among the service's users.
The Boilermakers conclude their spring break trip with a four-game series at Santa Clara, beginning Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.