A few months ago I helped my dad set up his LinkedIn account. He actually entrusted me with his account password so I could log in and update his profile on his behalf. Then we scheduled a time to talk on the phone for me to guide him through this foreign social media tool.

Thirty minutes into “training,” I felt like I had contemplated the deep meaning of LinkedIn and its role in this world. His questions completely halted my original plan to show him around the website. Instead, we focused on who creates a profile and why and whether he should accept invitations from people he doesn’t know in his industry or even from his own family and friends. “Most of my family isn’t even in my industry,” he very accurately argued.

I’m not suggesting that you connect with my dad via LinkedIn, but here are three ways for you to connect with E Source on LinkedIn.

One: Connect with E Source Staff

Don’t be shy. There are lots of E Sourcers on LinkedIn. We write reports for you, e-mail with you, and hang out with you at our conferences, so let’s connect through the closest social media tool related to work.

Two: Tell People You’re Attending an E Source Conference

We want our attendees to connect before and after our events. It’s hard to find and meet everyone you hope to talk to at a conference; in my opinion, LinkedIn helps facilitate that process. Here are three E Source conferences we’ve added to LinkedIn. Let us and your LinkedIn pals know if you’ll be in attendance:

• 25th Annual E Source Forum
• 4th Annual E Source Utility Marketing Conference
• 2012 E Source Utility Customer Experience Conference
• 19th Annual E Source Energy Managers’ Roundtable

Three: Join an E Source Group

We recently launched the E Source Utility Customer Experience Leaders Group on LinkedIn, and it has exploded with engaging discussions. Our members are talking about Pinterest, “collaborative” customer service, chat as a contact channel, and much more. If you deal with customer experience at your utility, I highly recommend joining this group either as a contributor or just to listen to what others have to say. We also have a group for utility and energy manager professionals. Send an e‑mail to Wendy Bloechle, vice president of marketing and customer service at E Source, if you’d like to join either of our E Source groups.

Here some other industry groups that our employees are active in:

• Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Buildings Program group—open to the public to talk about research from the California Energy Commission’s PIER program
• Energy Demand-Side Management
• Energy & Utilities Network
• Outage Communications Strategies
• Social Media for Utilities

Please leave a comment below to recommend any LinkedIn groups, and thanks for connecting with us!