I was trolling LinkedIn tonight and looking for a sucktastic summary to rewrite. This one (below) won the prize. Maybe you can use this before and after example as inspiration to add some life to your own LinkedIn summary (or resume summary, for that matter).
Old Summary
Dynamic sales and marketing professional and thought leader with demonstrated results in exceeding performance objectives by driving innovation, team work and integrated business solutions. Evaluated business environment, interpreted organizational needs/priorities, and created strategies to capitalize on short-term and long-term growth opportunities. A resourceful, problem solver with the passion for proactive leadership and collaboration designed to deliver consistent profitable growth. Experienced in motivating/coaching direct reports and managing colleagues and external partners in a matrix environment.
What can we say? She thinks she's dynamic and she wants us to know that about herself. She may even be dynamic, but calling herself dynamic is not the best way to get that attribute across. Her results are demonstrated - pretty much all results are demonstrated, when you stop and think about it - and we hear that she's exceeded objectives, whatever those might have been.
The poor girl has written the WallPaper Summary, the set of words that lose their impact even as the reader's eyes glance over them. No force, no life, no power, nothing of the original Jane or Susan or Alexia whose charm and moxie those words were chosen to convey.
Let's try again. I made up a few details about our LinkedIn user to fill in the gaps:
I started my sales career selling spider-plant shoots to my neighbors in third grade, but I got a degree in Accounting and didn't make the move into full-time Sales until my thirties, when I figured out that the same problem-solving I'd done over spreadsheets let me put together solutions that helped my clients' businesses work better. I ran the Northeast for Acme Software until I got sucked into a vc-funded startup and got us into the top twelve resellers in the country. Now, I'm on the hunt for a cloud-computing vendor who needs a qual/quant mix like me to build a sales strategy and mobilize a team to grow revenue to $100M fast. Clever combinations of direct corporate sales and channel leverage are my specialty, and my passion (at work) is the closing dinner after a trajectory-changing sale. (My passion not at work is my horse-dog adventure team.)
Hey, you could put a little self and a little brand into your bio or LinkedIn summary, too. Would that ace you out of certain opportunities? Yes, it would. That's a good thing. The people who want what you bring will be all over you.