Queen’s Park to mine LinkedIn
Government to use data from workplace social media network to boost international trade
The Ontario government wants to connect on LinkedIn.
Queen’s Park is entering a non-monetary agreement with the workplace app in a data-driven bid to boost trade for the province.
About 1 per cent of LinkedIn’s worldwide users live in Ontario, so the company is mining that data — while protecting users’ privacy — with hopes of improving the vast network.
International Trade Minister Michael Chan said LinkedIn’s findings — in a report entitled “Understanding Trade Through International Connections” — suggest there are many opportunities for Ontario’s small businesses, with 50 or fewer employees, to tap into international trade.
“Through Ontario’s global trade strategy, our province has taken concrete steps to promote the global diversification of our goods and services,” Chan said.
“Our partnership with LinkedIn not only builds on one of the strategy’s main priorities of driving better intelligence for better results, it exemplifies how private and public sectors can work together with big data to better connect people to opportunities,” the minister said.
“While Canada is a trading nation, this work is driven by our view that Ontario should be a leader in international trade.”
LinkedIn’s Kenly Walker said the company is “expanding our economic graph work to inform international trade policy.”
“We were able to uncover new (and unexpected) insights on Ontario’s workforce.” KENLY WALKER LINKEDIN
“Based on the proprietary data of our nearly five million Ontario members, as well as that of our more than 546 million members globally, we were able to uncover new (and unexpected) insights on Ontario’s workforce, its global connectivity, and the markets and business sectors that offer potential for expanding the province’s trade relationships,” Walker said.
“The partnership is an exciting and positive example of how private and public sectors can work together to leverage the benefits of data analyt- ics to improve government decisionmaking and have broad reaching impact.”
LinkedIn’s research found that “compared to other provinces and states in Canada and the U.S., Ontario ranks the second highest in international connectivity.”
“The province’s international connectedness is also highly diverse. Ontario’s workforce is connected to countries all around the world, representing a multitude of different economies,” the report said.
“India, Middle Eastern countries, Brazil, Australia, Ireland and Nigeria show high connectivity with signif- icant opportunities to grow trade value with Ontario and leverage connections to facilitate trade,” it added.
“It demonstrates diversified trade potential in these markets for Ontario’s businesses.”
To preserve LinkedIn users’ privacy, the firm stressed “all data examined was at an aggregate level and no access to member-level data was provided.”
With mounting concerns about the future of NAFTA, the province is hoping to diversify Ontario’s trade relationships, which already account for 36 per cent of the provincial gross domestic product.