Art DeLorenzo and I were having a hard time connecting. He’s a 67-year-old retired financial adviser in the New York City area whose budding consulting practice keeps him from settling into an easy chair. I’m a journalist in San Francisco, perpetually on deadline. Several appointments we set were moved or missed, but we kept trying. Late one evening, as we seemed finally to settle on yet another date for our interview, DeLorenzo threw out a comment that would prove as valuable as anything he said in our hour-long phone call days later.

“Wait a moment.” DeLorenzo paused. “I could say 3 p.m., but the group I’ll be meeting with before you, they tend to run over. It’s just their habit, but I know this. So I’d rather not book you right up against them. I don’t want to compromise the integrity of my commitment to them.”

The details of one man’s business schedule might not seem meaningful at first. But in that moment I realized DeLorenzo’s deliberate emphasis on a few choice words—“the integrity of my commitment”—was a straightforward yet eloquent statement of a still-fuzzy but increasingly important trend: spiritual capitalism.

Spiritual capitalism doesn’t mean prayer sessions on the shop floor and guided meditations in the boardroom. At least it doesn’t have to. What it does mean is the success of an enterprise is measured by values like “integrity” and “commitment” as much as by targets like “efficiency” and “profitability.” It’s based on the recognition that every businessperson—whether you’re the CEO of a major multinational or the head of your own small firm—is in the service industry, and the services rendered must benefit not just yourself and your shareholders, but the planet and other people as well. The first commandment of the growing spiritual-capitalism movement is: Taking care of business means taking care of others.

On November 3, 2008 a group of about 35 people descended on a conference room at iContact in Durham, NC to learn more about how to enhance their profile for a job search. These 35 people are members of Linking Raleigh, NC, a networking group on LinkedIn with a very high concentration of Triangle professionals with profiles on LinkedIn.com. I, Greg Hyer, brought them together to discuss and share with them a number of best practices that should be considered when gearing up a profile for a job search.

Enhancing Your Profile To Be Found

Why should you enhance your profile? There are two reasons why. One is to increase your chances of being found. Whether you are in a job search or you are an entrepreneur you need to have a well written profile that can be found when someone searches for someone like you for a need they have. The second reason is that you want to communicate information about you accurately.  This is a chance you for you to brand yourself an expert in your field or industry. That can and needs to be communicated in your profile. That these two things in to consideration when enhancing your profile and you can increase your chances of being found on LinkedIn.