So I packed my bags, convinced my husband to join me (this was not a hard sell) and left Canada behind for two months. I didn’t expect I’d encounter anything new as it wasn’t my first time in country, but I soon discovered that living and working in Brazil was very different from just passing through. I did not – contrary to popular belief – work while sitting on a beach, but I did learn some valuable lessons that will stick with me.

Lunch time is sacred

Lunch in Brazil is a serious matter. Unlike North Americans who hurriedly swallow a sandwich while hammering out emails, Brazilians take the proper time to go out for lunch. They step away from their desks, go to a restaurant with colleagues, take time to savour the food and enjoy good conversation while they eat. I’ll be honest – it took me time to get used to leaving my computer behind and sitting down to a meal in the middle of the day. I always felt I didn’t have time or I’d be missing out on something important. But you know what’s important? Eating lunch. Chewing. Taking a break. I soon began to appreciate just how vital this midday meal is. I also got to know my LinkedIn Brazil colleagues much better, and they me. I moved my meetings around to accommodate this time and my emails were waiting for me when I returned. After my time in Brazil, I look at lunch in a whole new way and plan to teach my other international colleagues about its benefits.

Listening and understanding is an art

How well do you listen when having a conversation with a colleague, friend or family member? Do you ever find yourself half tuned in while you mentally prepare what you will say next? Nothing makes you listen more than when you must comprehend what someone is saying in a foreign language. Even after studying Portuguese for nearly a year, I would sometimes only pick up 60-70% of what someone said to me at work, in a restaurant or just out and about in São Paulo. This meant I had to not only listen very carefully when engaging in a conversation, but I had to play close attention to nonverbal cues so I could pick up on mood, expression and tone. I’ve learned that truly listening requires attention and focus but pays off in better understanding.

‘Wasted’ time can be useful time

Traffic jams in São Paulo are epic. It once took me almost an hour to go eight blocks in a cab and combined with often limited mobile access, this could make for very stressful commutes. While at first I felt panic at not being able to work while in the back of a cab, I soon turned that time into what I call useful time. I downloaded several books to the Kindle app on my phone and began reading during each commute to and from work. In seven weeks, I read 14 books (full disclosure: I tend to devour books and read quickly, but still!) and really enjoyed the time to use my brain in a different way.

Human contact = happiness

I come from a very affectionate family so when I first visited Brazil I enthusiastically embraced (literally) the culture of kissing with each greeting. For North Americans, this may at first seem a bit jarring but it’s much more than it seems. Brazilians are among the warmest people I’ve ever met and each greeting is a genuine expression of joy (at seeing the person) and warmth (a quick embrace and a kiss on the cheek). I quickly found that each and every interaction I had with colleagues, friends and journalists was instantly made better by a bit of human contact that I rarely give or get at home. I hope the Canadians in my life are ready for this newfound appreciation of mine.

Even though I’ve left Brazil behind, it’s left a lasting impression. And if you ever get the chance to work or live in another country for a spell, I highly recommend it as you’ll come back a different – and better – person than you were when you left.

More than 250 LinkedIn employees signed up for the run, a diverse group of employees across all disciplines, each with different reasons for making the early morning trek. Some were out to beat personal goals while others just wanted to enjoy a beautiful day in the city and take in all the festivities around this fun run.

More photos from Bay to Breakers 2013

At 6am, blue LinkedIn shirts filled the intersection of Market and Montgomery in San Francisco. If you’ve ever been in San Francisco at 6am, you’ve likely never heard someone describe it as “warm”, but Sunday was different. It was perfect running weather and you could see the bounce in everyone’s step.

As my team and I passed out bibs, safety pins, and t-shirts, throngs of people were already heading to the start line. Some had the look of a person ready to compete in the race, others looked more like they were ready to keep whatever they started the night before going. This contrast is what makes Bay to Breakers so unique. One moment you’ll see an elite athlete who will traverse the course in under 40 minutes, and the next moment you see Super Mario and Princess Peach getting out of a cab.

As LinkedIn’s Health and Wellness Manager, I’m focused on creating an environment where people have convenient practical access to events and information that allow them to live their lives to their fullest. What makes this day special to me, and the reason I woke up at 3:45am(!), was to see LinkedIn employees laughing, competing, and celebrating together. To experience our people at the finish line, to have them proudly tell me how they ran faster than they thought they could; that they ran the entire distance and didn’t stop once; that they missed their goal but are determined to continue to work so that next year they will beat their goal.

Here are snippets of two emails I received after the race that perfectly sum up why Bay to Breakers means so much to me personally.

“I broke my personal best by 6 minutes. I had not done any running/training besides the InShape class, looks like it really paid off.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever run this race, and the first time I’ve ever done more than 5k. I had a blast, and I never would have done it on my own.”

Quite a day!

Over the last year and half we’ve had the chance to learn quite a bit from you about the types of changes that add the most value to your daily professional life, and we’ve brought some of these learnings to the new navigation. When approaching this re-design, we analyzed years of navigation data to determine which links were adding the most value for you, and which could be removed to create a more focused and streamlined experience. We also observed how useful Search was as a productivity tool, and aligned the search box with the results page, for fine-tuned search efficiency.

So what has changed?

As you explore the new navigation bar, you will notice a few visually striking differences, including a simplified menu of tabs to help you quickly and easily locate the features and content that are of most value to you. We have also moved the search bar front and center to make easier than ever to discover and find what you’re looking for on LinkedIn.

We’ve also ensured that your settings and other account options are a click away. Just hover over your profile picture in the upper right hand corner and the drop down menu gives you quick access to your account options, language and settings.

Check out this video to get you started on the new LinkedIn navigation bar today:

Over the next month, all English-speaking members around the world will get to experience the new navigation. We designed this new navigation experience to make it simpler and easier to use and look forward to hearing what you think.

You can’t build up a new network every time you look for a job or have a career need; think of your longer-term connections as a deep bench of teammates that – as long as you stay connected – will be your supporters for years to come.

Take my friend Jane, who is a master of keeping in touch over time. She is great at forwarding interesting articles, sending congratulations messages when people have good news and attending industry events where she’s likely to run into long-time connections. Recently Jane found herself in a job search and noticed on the LinkedIn Company Page of her dream employer that David, a former colleague from a decade earlier, currently worked at that company. Because she had kept in touch periodically over the years, Jane felt comfortable reaching out to David asking for help and he was delighted to introduce her to the hiring manager at his company.

Do you struggle with keeping in touch over time? Here are answers to three common questions about maintaining a strong long-term network on LinkedIn:

1. How do you reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time?

I admit it can be a bit awkward to send a LinkedIn connection request or InMail to a former colleague, classmate or client seemingly out of the blue. But you should do it anyway. Here are two reasons why: First, social media is still a new enough communication channel that people aren’t shocked to be contacted by an old friend who has come across their profile. Second, it’s so important to your job search and career prospects to maintain a strong network that it’s worth a bit of potential awkwardness.

That said, you can lessen the potential weirdness of the situation by writing a great “get back in touch” message. Here are the three elements of such a message: 1) Explain how you “rediscovered” the person, 2) Find something relevant to talk about by reviewing the person’s LinkedIn profile (to show that you have a genuine interest in the person and are a mutually beneficial networker, and 3) Tell them a bit about what you’re doing and, ideally, suggest a follow-up conversation during which you can talk about your job search and offer to help your contact with his or her needs. Just remember that this LinkedIn message is a friendly networking outreach, not the time to ask for a job. Here is an example:

Hi Connie,

It’s been a long time since our days at Acme — I hope all is well! I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you’ve been writing some blog posts on industry news. I checked out your latest piece on mobile marketing and really enjoyed it. Since leaving Acme, I’ve made a career switch and am currently exploring opportunities in corporate communications, mostly at smaller firms. Would you have some time in the next few weeks to catch up by phone? It would be nice to reconnect and I’d love to ask your advice on my job search.

All the best,

Lindsey

2. How do you keep in touch with someone when you don’t have an immediate need or any real “news” to share?

The best way to keep in touch with someone when you don’t have an immediate need or current news is by giving something to that person, such as information he or she would enjoy, congratulations on a new position or a comment on a discussion or status update that person has posted. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman calls this doing “small goods,” and it’s one of the best uses of the site.

LinkedIn provides some great ways to spark this type of outreach. First, there is the LinkedIn feed on LinkedIn.com. Here, you can see a stream of what your LinkedIn connections are sharing in their updates and find reasons to reach out. By simply liking an article someone posts, they’ll get a notification which will then keep you on that person’s radar screen. If you’d like to engage the person in a conversation, then use their status update as a reason to reach out with a LinkedIn message. Again, try to offer something of value to your contact. Here is an example:

Ari,

I just saw the article you posted about workplace wellness. I was really interested in the section on small businesses. I actually came across an article recently on small business health programs that I thought would interest you – hope you find it valuable.

Hope all is well – feel free to reach out if you ever need anything!

Best wishes,

Lindsey

Of course, you should also post your own updates so that your connections have a way to keep in touch with you as well. Just be sure to respond to everyone who makes an effort to reach out, to show your gratitude and maintain the relationships.

The new LinkedIn Contacts also provides reasons to reach out. Contacts brings together your address books, emails and calendars and will alert you on your connections’ job changes and birthdays. You can also use Contacts to set reminders to follow up. For instance, when someone accepts your connection request, you can set a reminder to reach out to that person in one month to say hello and ask if you can do anything to support that person. Contacts is available on LinkedIn mobile as well, so you can ping your contacts and maintain your relationships anywhere.

3. How often should you reach out to people just to “be in touch”?

All of the above tips may seem quite time consuming, but the reality is a “just to be in touch” outreach once or twice a year is usually enough to maintain a professional relationship — as long as those touch points are genuine and personal (i.e., not a “Hi Everyone!” mass email update). If you get into the habit of wishing people a Happy Birthday on their special day or sending personal holiday greetings in December, that means one additional outreach per person should suffice.

What’s most important to remember is to be authentic and generous in all of your networking efforts. It’s not about collecting as many contacts as possible or providing everyone with a weekly update on your job search. Networking is about building and maintaining mutually beneficial, long-term relationships that both sides genuinely appreciate. Good luck!

If you suspect that your 20-something employee is sneering at you from behind the stack of copies you asked him to collate, research suggests you might be right. Three-quarters of professionals under age 30 think their skills exceed those of an entry-level job, a survey released today by LinkedIn shows.

But workers over 30 were wary of this attitude, saying they doubted the younger generation’s work ethic. Perhaps more shockingly, 64 percent of all adults — young adults included — are nervous about millennials leading the workforce.

The season for commencement speeches — the annual ritual designed to bridge this ever-widening gap — is underway. Typically an admired leader, often with decades of work experience under her belt, imparts wisdom to a crowd of hopeful youth in polyester robes on the day of their college graduation.

Dozens of the thought leaders who write original content for LinkedIn have given, or are preparing to give, speeches to colleges, graduate schools and even high schools. Dozens more have ideas about the speeches they’d like to give, or wish they’d received when they were just starting out. They’ve posted their commencement addresses — real, abridged or theoretical — in an exclusive series on LinkedIn.

So how are some of the smartest and most successful professionals in the world addressing the fact that new graduates both fear for their future and feel overqualified?

Some with tough love.

Ciplex founder Ilya Pozin takes on entitlement, arguing that a degree means almost nothing in the real world. “Simply having a college degree will not get you hired. We need to break away from this idea,” he says. “In all reality, most employers could care less about your GPA or where you went to school.” And journalist Farhad Manjoo argues that however skilled graduates may feel, if they haven’t honed their writing acumen, they’re in trouble. “Over the last two decades … writing has surpassed talking as the most important skill in the modern workplace,” he says. Frank Wu, Chancellor of the University of California Hastings College of Law, reminds students they’re not as smart as they think: “Even those of you who in fact are at the very top of the curve will find yourself surrounded by rivals who have attained that same status.”

But Influencers also came ready with tips and experiences that transcended cliches. Bob Dorf, co-author of the Startup Owner’s Manual, recommends grads ask themselves four questions, including “Am I an extrovert?” and “Can I take a chance on greatness now?” to figure out their post-grad roadmap. Venture capitalist Ann Winblad told graduates that while it may seem their careers will turn on their first job, it almost never works out that way. “I quit my first job and went from a great salary to almost zero,” she says. “But I now had a really great job and the one I really wanted.” Randi Zuckerberg, founder of Zuckerberg Media, warns to “be careful what you get good at,” citing a story from earlier in her career when her excellence at a simple administrative task caused her bosses to pass her over for more challenging work. Wolff Olins CEO Karl Heiselman gives some counterintuitive advice: Write your obituary. “That sounds morbid, but it’s actually exciting,” he says. “You’ve got a whole life ahead of you, so think about the impact you want to make in the world and what you want to be known for.”

And as for those fears about entering the workplace? Author, journalist and activist Maria Shriver cautions against getting caught up in ambition, instead recommending a break to pause and reflect. “It’s a race to be next, to be first, to be new. Sorta scary, isn’t it?” She asks. Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell also suggested reticence: “Don’t get married too soon. Don’t choose a career too soon. Don’t commit to a city to live in too soon. Don’t rush it. You have plenty of time.”

LinkedIn’s survey showed that most millennials are more interested in pursuing something they love than making money, and that they overwhelmingly preferred startups to large companies. Advocates of that approach include Virgin co-founder Richard Branson, who suggests students find something they love and create their own path. “I never had a boss in my life,” he says. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark urges graduates to work for small companies, lamenting corporate culture that encourages “meetings. Lots of meetings, where people will often speak for the sake of being perceived as contributing.” And GE CEO Jeff Immelt encouraged bravery, risk-taking and leadership in a speech he gave to the University of Connecticut’s graduate school earlier this month. “We can’t wait for the economy to stabilize. We can’t wait for a time when there is more certainty.”

Graduates are often encouraged to do what they love. But Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com, even challenges that idea: “The key is to be honest with yourself. Loving something doesn’t mean you’re good at it.”

If, as LinkedIn’s research suggests, millennials have doubts about their post-graduate future, they’d do well to incorporate some of these lessons. But you don’t have to be a new graduate to be inspired by these commencement speeches from the top minds in business, which combine humor, practical insights and a dose of cheerleading.

Unlike the speeches in this series, many commencement addresses will be forgettable. An irreverent final word on graduation comes from Buzzfeed president John Steinberg. He says he learned by observing his peers and making mistakes, not by being told what to do with his life. “When you are listening to that commencement speech, and the speaker starts on the whole ‘break convention, pursue your own path’ riff, I would urge you to just zone out.”

If you are soaking up Influencer advice on the go, you can also find it on Pulse. Pulse features LinkedIn’s 20 channels, including our dedicated Commencement channel. You can check out more on this announcement from Pulse or simply download Pulse.

Tell us: What would you say to new graduates, and what do you wish someone had told you? Share with us on our LinkedIn Company Page or on Twitter @LinkedIn #linkedingrad.