Leveraging stuff  may not sound like the ultimate academic growth term, but it is certainly a key strategy when you are a small business or start up. Leverage means to milk something without buying a dairy farm and stuff is anything that you can find and legally use to help achieve your goals.

The team at Oddpodz is doing our best to crank out useful content and create educational tools. But we know we need to provide you our readers and community with more. You need a way to engage, participate beyond blog commenting and shooting us occasional emails. We thought about finding an spiffy application where you can post questions, and while that might be nice, it would be pretty primitive tool at best.

We use Linkedin a lot to help drive traffic to the site. The Linkedin team has done a stellar job (with the help of a few million bucks in funding) to build out the solid functionality of the site, thus allowing its members the ability to do many cool things for free. We like free and really like technology that someone else has paid for. BINGO! A tool Oddpodz can leverage!

Here’s how it works. We just set up a group in Linkedin for Oddpodz. A Linkedin group is the perfect place for Oddpodz to attract new folks and to conduct discussions with our readers. After you join the Oddpodz group, you can ask questions, share answers and voice opinions, all in a nicely developed suite of tools that Linkedin maintains. Members of the Oddpodz group can also manage how often they want to be updated with new discussions etc.

Here’s what you need to do to get in on the discussion.

1) If you don’t have a profile on Linkedin, you need one. That’s your first step. For some great tips on setting up the best Linkedin profile check out, the social media Ta-Do list and a past blog on social media.

2) Build your network of business associates and colleagues. My network, as of 7.12, has close to 500 folks in it. To find me, search under people and type in “Karen Post.” You are welcome to join my network.

3) Now go to groups and search for Oddpodz. Request to join and unless you are a Russian spy, a snake oil salesman or spammer, you are in like flyn!

4) Next, need help with a entrepreneurial issue or marketing challenge? Go to start a discussion (in the groups section), post a new discussion with your questions and we will do our best to provide you with some good, timely advice. And the really awesome thing is, as the group grows so will the pool of smart brains to help you.

This is officially an entrepreneurial experiment. We have great intentions, but it is a launch and learn, so be patient with us. And as always, thanks for your support!