LinkedIn Has Become the Robocall of the Internet. Yet, It Could Be so Much More.
Adobe announced it will be buying Figma for a whopping $20B. It made a desktop-centric creative tools company in one swoop a whole lot cooler and more relevant with the addition of a cloud-centric collaborative tool creators and designers love.
LinkedIn is in need for a similar infusion of fresh blood. After the purchase by Microsoft, the company focused on serving companies with products for recruiters and corporate learning. In the process, LinkedIn forgot about the users who put their data freely on their site.
My experience has degraded rapidly over the years. Rather than connecting with kindred spirits, the connections are now dominated by sales calls.
“Hi, your profile looks interesting to me. I like to meet and connect” is quickly followed up by “I have this thing to sell you” or “I have these engineers to offer you”. LinkedIn has become the RoboCall from the Internet. ”No Thank you.” Click.
With Slideshare, LinkedIn had a great community product, where users could profile themselves, and where you could learn freely on all kinds of topics. It since sold of this product and now promotes Linked Learning. At $27/month, LinkedIn Learning is still a good deal. However, that product misses the larger networking effect: discovery of interesting people and content, and sharing knowledge and profiling oneself.
It may be hard to change LinkedIn from within. After all, those enterprise-focused products surely must be bringing in a pretty penny. Similar to Adobe, with its cash generating desktop products, LinkedIn may need to look outside for a new spark that will please its “users”.
- Acquire LunchClub. This Tinder-for-professionals networking application pairs you with folks you may be interested in for a 30 minute video call. Many of my calls have gone much longer. I’ve kept in touch with several of the folks since. It would bring LinkedIn back to its roots, and offer something useful to its users.
- Reset LinkedIn Groups with a Reddit-for-Professionals. Hire community shepherds who manage the LinkedIn Groups.
- Provide better options to control the newsfeed. Start with providing the ability to turn off the marketing machine of your own company. Working at a small company, I am connected to almost everybody in the company. Every company post and employee repost shows up in my timeline. This is in addition to the internal marketing feed on the same subjects. I want to learn something new when I come to LinkedIn.
- Invest in building a mentorship product, partner with Enrich or Plato.
- Partner on mental health to provide online coaching sessions.
The big bucks may be in the B2B products. It is important not to forget that this is possible because all of us sharing freely our information. We want something useful in return.
September 18, 2022
Lazy Lingo
Great writing is simple and clear. It is sufficiently precise that the meaning of a word is obvious to the reader.
It caught my attention how some words, commonly used in a professional setting, are the opposite. Their meaning shifts regularly. There is much more behind these words. It may not even be clear which of several meanings the user wants to convey. They tend to be lazy words and beg you to ask for more information.
Here’s my top 5:
- Agility
- Efficiency
- Contextualization
- Roadmap
- Plan
September 18, 2022
Delayed Action
I recently read a quick summary of Lex Fridman’s interview with Magnus Carlsen, considered the Greatest Chess Player of All Time. The comment about inaction as a strategy is interesting.
Inaction as Action: Strategy often goes beyond finding a way for you to win. Sometimes, it’s about letting the opponent find a way to lose. In these instances, inaction can be the optimal course of action.
It reminded me also about the quote I thought was attributed to Steve Jobs
When you don’t know what the next step is, it is ok to wait.
Most quotes on inaction are about avoiding analysis paralysis, or how imperfect action is better than perfect action. That’s true.
Yet, rushed action can be equally bad.
It is indeed ok to wait before taking an action. It is an often used strategy on the soccer pitch or in the peloton. Waiting for the right moment is delayed action, not inaction.
Delayed Action Door Closer
September 5, 2022
Cha-Cha-Changes
We are officially empty nesters. Our oldest graduated university earlier in the year and started his first job in Los Angeles this month. We dropped by today and jumpstarted his place. His desk is set up, ready to work in hybrid mode. Godspeed!
Los Angeles was only a short stop on the way back from dropping of our young one at university in San Diego. It was a weekend filled with events, and most of all unpacking and setting up her dorm. Her place looks amazing. An exciting new chapter is starting at USD. Go Torreros!
On our way back, aptly, we played David Bowie’s *Changes”, as we drove back over the Grapevine.
August 28, 2022
Great Balls of Fire
Months after opening in theaters, we finally went to watch Top Gun Maverick. With a couple fans in jumpsuits flanking me as my right wingman, and my son on my left, I was fully ready, reclined in one of those leather luxury movie theatre seats.
Tom Cruise wasn’t lying when prior to the movie he said that they did everything to give us the best in flight experience.
The movie is amazing! It is a beautiful cocktail of nostalgia with flashbacks and references to the original Top Gun (Goose, Ice, Penny), mixed in with just about the right amount of romantic soap, and a stiff dose of fighter jet scenes.
The story plot doesn’t disappoint either, with a few curve balls here and there.
August 7, 2022
Tour De France 2022: All In.
“This has been the best Tour de France in years!”
Potentially.
It sure ranks up there. The battle between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar was amazing. Wout Van Aert was the most dominant rider in the Tour. There was no dull stage, and little was predictable.
Some remember the 1989 edition as the greatest Tour in recent memory with Lemond beating Laurent Fignon in the final time trial by 8 seconds, on the Champs Elysees. An American outlaw won from a French rider in Paris! Oh My!
Pogacar’s climb time trial win over Roglic only a few years ago, was reminiscent of the 1989 tour. Yet, it lacked in excitement in the weeks prior.
I remember the great 1986 battle between Lemond and Hinault as if it was yesterday. It was also a hot edition. The attacks were daily. Both riders went all in!
I’ll remember the 2022 Tour de France as one where riders went all in!
July 24, 2022
Srac Is San Jose’s Best Kept Secret Pool
The San Jose State University’s Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center (SRAC) is a brand new facility. It opened in 2019. It is San Jose’s best kept secret pool.
For a while, I have been looking for an affordable pool to swim laps.
Most pools are connected to a gym requiring a monthly membership. They are also heavily packed with often two or three swimmers per lane. I looked into YMCA and Villa Sport. Villa Sport came out to be $150/month.
Cabana clubs are another option and can benefit the entire family. However, they require an upfront investment of purchasing somebody’s share in the club. Last I checked this was $500.
Local pool tend either to have odd hours or were catering more to the recreational splash and swim for kids.
That’s when I stumbled on SRAC. This $140 million facility has a smaller 25-meter pool to swim laps, a recreational pool, and a large 50-meter pool with 1-and 3-meter diving boards. A monthly community membership is $60. Day passes for the family are $5 per person.
This week was my first week exercising in the early evenings. On the busiest day, there were 4 people swimming laps in the big pool! Even on July 11, National Pool day, there were only a handful of people exercising and swimming laps. Friday evening, I had the entire pool for myself, under the watchful eye of my private life guard.
I anticipate this luxury will all change when school is back in session. We shall see.
July 17, 2022
In My Backyard
In recent months, I was shocked twice to learn about somewhat major events that happened in my backyard, and of which I didn’t know anything at all.
The first story is detailed in Ben Mezrich’s book Bitcoin Billionaires. It tells the story of the Winklevos twins’ second act: the world of Bitcoin. Both are working with Charlie Shrem to learn and build early infrastructure to trade crypto. Several important events happen in San Jose. I missed the news of those early Bitcoin conferences. Also San Jose native Roger Ver has an important role in the book. And I learned about a new dining spot in San Jose’s Japan town.
The second story I learned about in Netflix’s The Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet, The Stingray episode. In the late 90s, pre-Wifi, when I was dialing up using EarthLink, Daniel Rigmaiden was using a Verizon Airlink card to connect to the internet from his apartment in Santa Clara, opposite of Santa Clara university. The story describes the capture of Daniel, who criminally made thousands of dollars scamming the IRS. In order to find Daniel, the government used Stringray, a new and dubious technology which legality is discussed in the documentary. Watching the 2-part story, Stingray was a huge deal. The entire story, which happened less than 10 miles from me, escaped me.
July 10, 2022
Europe Is Souring
After three Covid years, we made it back to the old comtinent and Belgium.
A lot has remained unchanged. The Sunday morning little breads, pistollets, homemade or from the bakery, taste as decliciously as 25 years ago. Twice-fried Belgian fries define what fries are all about, especially when paired with a strong beer and a large pot of mussels with onion and celery. The speed limits in Belgium remain as confusing as ever, as are so many traffic rules. I surely misread some Speeding limited and expect one or two speeding tickets from the many speeding cameras in Flanders.
Plenty has changed for the good as well. Many old building have been restored to their original glory. The country felt as it if it put on a new coat, and underwent an overall clean up, with plenty of flowers everywhere and flags. Some of the places we visited, Gent, Zoutleeuw, De Haan, Beringen, all shine.
And yet, when you talk to people, read the news or scroll through Flemish Twitter, you hear a different story. The distrust of government institutions is at its highest. Ordinary farmer are in the street. Nobody believes the government when it comes to energy policy, Covid, or Russia.
I was used this type of conspiracy rethoric and distrust from “freedom-loving-American-patriots”. It is no longer limited to the woods of Idaho, Texas, or New Hampshire. It is in Flanders, in the fields of Holland, in England. The general sentiment in Europe is sour. People aren’t content, and anticipating some sort of major (political) change. People had enough. Something is brewing.
July 7, 2022
