Very interesting article Friday on the former Miasolé CEO:

Short synopsis, from the article:

Dave Pearce, former CEO of Miasolé, has apparently joined a new company called Nuvosun, according to CNET.The company is trying to develop a film that will prevent moisture from penetrating — and degrading — thin-film solar panels, the story says.

OK, so that part may not be that interesting to you, unless you’ve been following the solar tech industry closely.  (Miasolé, pronounced MEE-AH-SO-LAY, is venture backed by Kleiner Perkins).  But check out this paragraph:

CNET said it contacted Pearce, but hadn’t heard back to confirm the details and cited a LinkedIn profile. Greentech Media also has been unable to contact Peace or to get others to confirm his new role.

However, one former employee confirmed that former Miasolé’s Pearce did have a LinkedIn profile, and the only LinkedIn profile for “Dave Pearce” that cites previous experience at Miasolé and Domain Technology — a thin-film hard-drive manufacturer where Pearce was previously CEO — lists him as president and CEO of Nuvosun.

I checked the original CNET article:

CNET News.com contacted Pearce, but have not heard back to confirm these details. However, we know for certain that Nuvosun is the name of the company. He’s listed as the CEO of Nuvosun on his LinkedIn profile.

That’s right – the information source that broke the news was a LinkedIn profile.

Now, I’ve seen this happen with friends and colleagues before – someone gets a promotion, a new job, or leaves a company.  They then update their LinkedIn profile long before the news has become public… and the LinkedIn Network Updates feed breaks the story for them.  (Note to audience – LinkedIn has a preference where you can turn off updates, which can be useful at times when you don’t want the story to break this way).

Still, this is the first time I can recall seeing a press story where the source of record that confirmed the story was LinkedIn.  In fact, it’s even the byline of the article:

A LinkedIn profile for Dave Pearce, former head of the Santa Clara, Calif., thin-film firm, lists him as CEO of NuvoSun.

Pretty cool, when you think about it.  I think this is going to become more and more common as LinkedIn becomes the preferred source of record for professional reputation, experience and education.