Trade show producer and entertainer Ken Newman masters sleight of hand but when he’s not performing on the trade show floor, Ken’s magic may be how he uses social media to market his 25-year old company, Magnet Productions.

“Email is white noise,” says Ken, who still uses email blasts to reach key prospects but he sees its limitations in its efficacy. as email conjures up only two percent of his annual revenues.

Email is like the digital equivalent of 25 lbs of recycled paper you get in the mail everyday. I’m not going to open the PG&E bill, or the letter from the IRS first. I’m going to sort the stuff on the front stoop and throw most of it that doesn’t look of interest to me immediately in the recycling bin. There is just too much for me to open and organize. On the other hand, LinkedIn is something that my prospects and former clients are excited about. They open a message from me, because it’s come from an organized network free of junk.

So Ken did an experiment to test his hypothesis that LinkedIn was more effective to getting new engagements:

He sent out LinkedIn requests to his entire address book, and asked his prospects and clients if they would write a testimonial for him and post it to his LinkedIn profile. The results?

• A 20% response rate.
• Personal messages & testimonials from marketing directors, senior execs – decision makers who hire Ken directly.
• Warm, direct responses from former clients whom he hasn’t connected with in over two years.
• 21 new testimonials in less than one week.
• Bookings for over four new engagements.
• Comments regarding Ken’s expansion of services.
• An offer to speak at an exclusive conference from his knowledge about social media.

There is the sense, it is business centric. It’s got a lot less noise. People look at that and think if I don’t respond to this in a timely fashion, I wont be thought of. The only way I can test that is empirically, the only way I did this to get recommendations on email 2%

“When someone is writing how wonderful you are, it reminds them how valuable you are. It’s happened to me, when I write a testimonial for someone else…. It makes me think,  ‘Wow, This person is really that wonderful.’ ”

LinkedIn is about connection in a very profound way, says Ken, who’s also got a healthy following on Twitter, Facebook and biznik. Even outside the viritual world, Ken knows how to build and manage business relationships, and understanding that connection in safe and trusted medium creates an impression in the mind of prospect.

A message from someone on LinkedIn may carry more value than email because it’s coming from a closed network; a perception that the sender of the message is familiar in someway, focused on business, and intelligent enough to use something that, I also have the decoder ring for.

There are 50 million LinkedIn users, and since 2002, LinkedIn has been building its credibility and product to ensure that those of us using it, will benefit from its experience.  Has LinkedIn worked in growing your business?

What Van Jones’ resignation can teach the green business movement.

He’s been two trending topics on Twitter for several days. His google hits by now topple 12,000. He united the cause for getting poor African Americans with the environmental movement. He raised over $125 million for green collar job development and got him all the way to Washington. He challenged all of us with the elitism of the environmental movement – with terms like “eco-apartheid.” His grass-roots organizations, Green For All and the Ella Baker Center, influence legislation, business leaders and kids, giving us hope that the green movement includes and effects everyone, peacefully.

Van Jones, the same luminary who is helping the green business movement spread its influence, is apparently, also danger to American ingenuity.  He represents something that many of us aren’t used to: ambiguity.

Entrepreneurs may not admit it, but ambiguity is part of the framework for developing a business. Particularly a green business. Green leaders are really concerned about a myriad of complex values coming together at the same time. These include: prosperity, social justice, peace, sound science, good environmental practices, education, awareness and transparency. In Van’s case, transparency wasn’t really working for his image but he was about the other stuff. And he certainly has never been about hatred or bringing the country down.

He’s an activist. A visionary. A political leader.

Labels can be limiting. They don’t often describe who we are, and what we do, or even what we stand for. Green business leaders need to continually educate and discuss the vision of what we stand for. And back that up with the benefits of our actions. And this makes way for change.

When I was getting my green MBA, a former ivy-league educated colleague of mine told me I had “drunk the Kool-Aid “ when I told her about the coming of companies adopting sustainable initiatives. The $3 billion dollar corporation she’s a senior manager for made green a priority in 2007. I’ve taken hits from my own family for years about how “un-informed” I am about human impact on the environment. The more the companies my family invested in participate in sustainability, the faster the family changed  opinions on people they once vilified. Admitting, that maybe – just maybe -  Al Gore deserved the Nobel Prize after all.

When people see a vision of the future match their beliefs; they will support what you stand for.  Even if it’s a variation on what you personally believe.

“ I’ve often said that going green is not an issue for one side of the political spectrum or another, said Glenn Croston founder of StartingUpGreen.com. “ Going green is viewed as a moral, economic, and security imperative, and as a business opportunity, by people across the political spectrum. But politics is a dirty game to be sure, so I’m not surprised by the latest events. I just hope that dirty politics does not equate with a dirty, and down, economy.

The sustainability movement urgently needs outspoken heroes. But we can’t do that with green-colored glasses on. Like it or not, we have to deal with a much more vicious, hateful and racist landscape than we bargained for a decade ago.  Those leaders who are adapting green and including green collar jobs in their workforce need to pick up where this media-frenzy left off to create a healthier economy.