My LinkedIn Network’s Demographics, Upon Request

I often get asked about the makeup of my network, the demographics if you will. As I’m a person who has always appreciated statistics, analytics, etc., I’ve kept track of a number of details over a very long period of time, although not as many details as preferred. But the following information should give you an idea of the types of things I often try to keep track of. Naturally, a professional network is always a fluid thing, so while new people become a part of your network, others will leave. That’s simply the way it goes. As a result, many companies/organizations & career fields slip into & out of rankings, in that some careers become represented by more connections while other previously large areas of career fields in your network eventually become less represented. So it is with the companies/organizations/entities I’ve tracked over the years that are on my ever changing list of companies where I have the most connections.

Since this has been the subject of curiosity for at least some of you, I thought I’d throw together a basic informal list of demographics concerning my network, which in its present form consists of technically 18,795 followers/connections.

Among the most common fields/occupations in my network are:

• Federal/International Government
• Security
• Analyst
• IT/SW Engineer
• Engineer
• Project/Program Manager
• Writer/Editor
• Researcher/Scientist
• Nuclear Professional

There are literally hundreds of fields or occupations represented in my network – virtually every viable field or category in the world. There are many others not listed above because I can only spare so much time for recording such data continually. I enjoy it, but it’s time-intensive, & honestly, I have more important things to do with my time. One interesting thing, though, is the most commonly represented occupation, by far, is Senior Executive/C-Level Executive. But since these people represent many fields, I chose not to include that in this list. Another huge category in my network is professional sports. I used to track that, but it became so much work, that I simply stopped sometime last year. Off the top of my head, when I stopped recording, I had connections then at 29+ NFL teams, 27+ NBA teams, 27+ MLB teams, 26+ NHL teams, as well as numerous minor league teams & some international professional soccer/football clubs as well, largely in Europe. I literally have no idea how many hundreds of people these are, but they range from team ticket takers to PR pros, announcers to directors, VPs, various C-level execs, & a number of team President/CEOs. Also included are pro team founders & owners. Additionally, a number of current & former players representing numerous teams in all of the sports are in the network, including All Pro & Pro Bowl players, as well as pro Hall of Famers & some of the actual Hall of Fame organizations themselves, & connections at the various league offices & media, such as the NFL Network, MLB Network, ESPN, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, etc.

Hollywood, interestingly, is well represented, including all of the mainstream television studios, numerous cable studios, many major movie studios, as well as a number of less well-known ones. Joining them are various entertainers, Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe, Tony Award-winning/nominated actors, actresses, directors, producers, professionals in sound, engineering, makeup, etc., record label companies, musicians, the Rock & Rock Hall of Fame, as well as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, & everything between, entertainment media, journalists, editors & executives.

Some other major categories represented in my network would be business development, advertising & marketing, & international academia, including professionals representing over 70 academic institutions from at least 19 countries in the past two months alone. Ultimate total? Completely unknown.

Among the many fields & industries are technology, social media, online companies, networking, security/cybersecurity, malware researchers, clothing, retail, beverages, food, automobiles, aerospace, transportation, travel, personal & commercial tools, textiles, mining, steel, oil, jewelry, music, media, television, film, art, dance, entertainment, journalism, publishing, telephony, finance & banking, human resources & recruiters, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, engineering, science & research, AI/ML, data science, analysts, nuclear power, weapons of all types, consulting companies, nonprofit agencies & organizations, NGOs, humanitarian agencies, international think tanks, policy professionals, people of all spiritual & political persuasions, angel investors, venture capital firms, intelligence agencies/firms, encryption, executive protection, hostage & ransom negotiators, casinos, auction houses, private collectors, wireless carriers, mobile phone manufacturers, hotels, cruise lines, trainers, commercial & military aircraft, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, the national research labs, numerous international commercial, academic & government research labs, & the list is endless, really.

A few more major ones…

My network has thousands of DoD employees, as well as military professionals from nearly 50 other countries, including several countries’ Secretaries of Defense. Within the US DoD, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is well represented, the Joint Staff is well represented, & every branch, combat command & defense agency is represented, as well as virtually every military academy & defense college/university active today.

I also believe 70+ national governments are represented, as well as hundreds of connections at ERUOPOL, INTERPOL, The World Bank, NATO, the EC, EU, United Nations, etc. Furthermore, one of my research & career interests, & where I’ve done some consulting work at times, is the nuclear industry in virtually every concentration shared by many. I believe I have nuclear connections in over 55 countries at the present, as well as at the various international agencies, etc. Another research interest is quantum field theory & computing, & I have quantum connections (& other physicists) in dozens of countries, at research universities, commercial research labs, national labs, & private research labs. And of course, thousands of people in the defense & private intel/military industries. At last count, I believe I had connections at about 100 defense contractors & 175+ Private Military Companies. And at last count, I had connections in roughly 150+ countries. Now I think I’ll wrap this section up, or it might never end! It already sounds too much like bragging, which is not my intention. It’s to simply share stats, demographics, facts with you & display my endless intrigue at how & where people come from & what they do.

Finally, I thought you might find it interesting to know which entities are most heavily represented in my network. In fact, many people have asked me that exact question & continue to do so on a semi-regular basis. So in current order, the organizations where I have the most connections are the US Department of Defense, Microsoft Corporation, Cisco, Dell, C Spire, Raytheon, UN (United Nations), Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, IBM, AWS, Malwarebytes, SAIC, Pentagon, Northrop Grumman, Oracle, Intel, Palo Alto Networks, Google, Samsung, General Dynamics, Boeing, CACI International, Seagate Technology, TVA, L3 Technology, ORNL (Oak Ridge National Lab), Citi, Harris Corporation, MITRE, USSTRACOM, US Department of Homeland Security, Visa, BAE Systems, Deloitte, US Department of State, LANL (Los Alamos National Lab), Regions Bank, NASA, NATO, Parsons Corporation, Aerospace Corporation, Sierra Nevada Corporation, European Commission (EC), Johns Hopkins APL, Bitdefender, Western Digital, NBCUniversal, RAND Corporation, Symantec, Ticketmaster, Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Lab), Thales, Twentieth Century Fox, VMware, McAfee, Trend Micro, Adobe, Sophos, NVIDIA, IEAE, AT&T, The Brookings Institution, Idaho National Lab (INL), Cray Inc., MIT Lincoln Lab, Pacific Northwest National Lab, Walt Disney Co., NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration), Apple, ManTech, US Department of Justice, Facebook & US Department of Energy. There are thousands more, but these are the entities where I currently have the most connections in my network, in order beginning with the most.

I hope this has A) sufficiently answered the questions frequently asked of me, B) will allow some people to review some potentially intriguing and/or random facts, or C) possibly have given some people an excellent rest due to sheer boredom or exhaustion at having to wade through these data. Thanks to those of you who appreciate it or at least don’t mind, & my apologies for inadvertently offending anyone or for boring you to the point of tears.

Scott C. Holstad

May 21, 2019