The phrase "expert network" was originally coined by Mark O'Connor of Yankee Group in 1997. An expert network is a network made of qualified experts on a specific industry, sector or niche topic.

Connectivity. The value of a network depends on the quality of the connections that are made among its members. This is especially important for an expert network where members need to exchange information and collaborate to grow their expertise.

Diversity. Expertise is developed by involving all the stakeholders on the specific sector/topic. Enrich the network by inviting public institutions, private organizations and related networks that can provide a unique cross-fertilization to your expert network.

Sharing. Knowledge sharing is probably the most important element for a thriving expert network. These networks have spaces for members to discuss specific niche topics and spaces where all members can feel safe to ask questions, get feedback and provide their expertise to others.

Once you have a network that regroups experts in a certain area, you can leverage it in different ways. Here are some examples.

Access to expertise. Experts are usually keen to share their expertise and knowledge. You can build services around this where organizations/companies pay the network to access individual (e.g. calls/consultations) or collective knowledge (e.g. surveys) and experts can monetize their expertise.

Open innovation. Innovation-driven companies rely often on collaborations with partners and experts to develop their business. Your expert network will be a valuable resource for them and for all the organizations that are represented by the experts.

Recruiting. Companies may seek experts to hire experts for consulting missions or other roles - you can provide paid recruiting services to companies or headhunters.

Lounjee has incorporated all the features you need to grow and manage an expert network.

Connectivity. Lounjee’s AI-based matchmaking help your experts connect with each other, organically. This creates engagement and participation within the network with little effort for you.

Diversity. Lounjee was designed so that you can create sub-networks and give “networking space” to your partner organizations. You can also decide to partner with other expert networks within Lounjee, creating cross-fertilization opportunities that will benefit all members.

Sharing. Your members can collaborate in thematic chat rooms, ask questions on the activity feed, attend virtual events and participate in private video-conferences. With Lounjee you have a set of features that will make knowledge sharing easy and efficient.

Yes, Lounjee gives you plenty of tools to create a network from scratch (e.g. virtual events, chat rooms,..).

For instance, you could host a virtual event in your new network and invite experts, companies and organizations. The Lounjee virtual event solution was specifically designed to transform an event into a community, giving you a scalable way to build an expert network.

Yes. Non-experts will find in your network a place to learn and access to qualified experts. Your experts can share their knowledge to others and build valuable collaborations.

Yes. The fact you have already a community of experts will make it easy to establish it on Lounjee.

The matchmaking first approach means that you will see strong engagement and retention in your expert network even if you do little or no network management. Each expert can unlock the network and discover the other experts/members they should know.

Even if you never publish content, your members will be heavily engaged (the content “is” the other people in a sense).

It’s even better when you create webinars, virtual events, content and other initiatives. However, Lounjee surfaces content from other members and helps them connect which means that setting up the community initially and inviting members is often all that needs to be done for an expert network to grow like wildfire.

Yes. Lounjee was built with the GDPR regulation at its core.
We encrypt all data to industry leading standards and are fully GDPR compliant.

There are two main elements that make Lounjee unique.

How members connect. Lounjee connects the members of a network based on their professional goals and interests (with AI-based matchmaking). This matchmaking will suggest members to each other and explain all the good reasons why they should connect. This simple approach has a dramatic impact when it comes to building and engaging the network.

How networks are built. Lounjee gives you a platform to create a private community. Only members you allow can join and only you can communicate with your members. Because members can belong to multiple communities, you can also create spaces that members can optionally join that involve a wider community (for example, we have such a space for the Berlin University Alliance of 9 universities).

As you probably know, engagement on LinkedIn Groups can be very low and your ability to message and communicate with the group is very limited. The reason is simple: unlike Lounjee, LinkedIn was not conceived to power individual networks.

The second fundamental difference is how people connect. LinkedIn was designed to connect you with people you know already. Lounjee instead, was designed to connect you with people that you do not know yet, but you should know for the specific list of reasons that Lounjee surfaces.