LinkedIn Forgot to Serve Its “Users”, and Missed the Opportunity to Be a Great Professional Community
Without a LinkedIn profile you don’t exist and you don’t have a career.
Your HR department probably has several LinkedIn recruiter licenses to find great candidates. You may even have asked your team to mine their networks for great candidates. For hiring managers, LinkedIn provides inspiration to specify the right job title or to describe the role. LinkedIn Recruiter appears to be serving companies well.
For many sales teams, LinkedIn has replaced the rolodex from over a decade ago. You may need some third-party add-ons to find the right email or phone number. The majority of the LinkedIn connect requests I receive turn into sales pitches. The introductory message “Hi, your profile looks interesting. I am looking to expand my professional network”, is quickly followed up with a sales pitch about the product or service the person is offering. It is as if I dropped of my business card at all the booths of a conference and told each salesperson, please contact me.
In the process of providing a great product for recruiters and account managers, LinkedIn forgot about the people volunteering their personal data. The saying “If you are not paying for it, you are the product” is more than ever true. Where is the value it offers me?
LinkedIn Groups often turns into a sales channel with a stream of press releases, or with news updates crossposted on Twitter and Facebook. I am sure we all have seen the Boston Dynamics robots jump and dance across all social media multiple times over. (Spot and Atlas are really cool nevertheless!)
LinkedIn experimented with a personal relationship manager (PRM) product. You could keep notes per contact, and schedule follow-up reminders. It was a really useful idea. It came and went away, pushing me to explore alternative Personal Relationship Managers: Ryze, Etch.ai or Followup.cc.
Peer-to-peer Career Advice was launched and is since no longer available either.
Slideshare used to be hot, but now feels on life support. It is no longer linked from main page. Instead, the $29.99/mo LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) is promoted.
I understand LinkedIn is a for profit business and not a community service. I don’t mind paying for a great product. For example, after enjoying (free) Medium articles for a while, I signed up and became a member to enjoy the full set of articles.
Microsoft and LinkedIn are missing an opportunity to create a great professional community. My advice would be to invest in offering a great free (and premium) product to those who share their personal information.
For example, in addition to making student resumes available to recruiters, also provide a low friction path for those students to connect with a company or ask a question from more experienced people. I can see integrations with Calendly or features from Handshake or Doorways benefit students. To the more experienced, put the skill listings to good use, so one can more easily find a knowledgeable person to answer a question. Stackoverflow meets Skills. It doesn’t have to be just about technical topics, advise on the software skills can benefit many managers. Blind meets Skills. Perhaps a professional bookclub feature or a mentoring program with a free and premium option.
Start by making great services free. Continue making money with the services targeting companies: recruiting, sales and corporate training.
January 1, 2021
A Short Update of Two Numbers
The first number is 216.9. It is the number of miles I have run in 2020. This year was not a stellar running year. We sheltered a lot at home this year, because of covid-19 and because of the poor air quality from the California wild fires. I also lacked the peer pressure from the MVARC running group. During the summer months, we did a lot more walking than running. At the end of the year I was able to put in more regular runs, and was hitting more than 10 miles per week. Slow and steady wins the race, right?
The second number is 365. That is the number I pledge to hit for 2021. I will run on average one mile per day.
December 31, 2020
Green Shorts Guy
Over the last weeks, I’ve been alternating between hikes on the Bay Area backyard trails and running the mean streets of San Jose. My goal is to increase the distance slowly to be able to run another half marathon. After a few 4 mile runs in the past weeks, my next target distance is a 10K (6.2mi).
The hardest part on these runs is to quiesce my active mind, and make it focus on anything else — but running. I often listen to podcasts. Today, I rekindled listening to Ali on the Run. I used to listen to her regularly over two years ago.
Trotting around the hard pavement near my house in my green shorts, I listed to the Ali on the Run Show with Calum Neff. They discuss in great detail what it took to pace Sara Hall at The Marathon Project in Arizona.
Calum is also known as green shorts guy. Running in green shorts is probably only thing we have in common. He runs marathons, and at a 5:20min/mi pace. My pace is double that, and over the shorter 10K distance.
I am glad I rediscovered Ali’s podcast as the run was over before I realized it.
December 30, 2020
Prof G 2021 Predictions
Pour yourself a glass of your favorite alcoholic libation. Strap yourself in your office chair and be ready to be overwhelmed by the 2021 predictions of Scott Galloway.
Prof G is my favorite twitter/blog/YouTube/podcast discovery of 2020. Yeah, where have I been all this time?
December 29, 2020
The Great Accelerator
A week ago I wrote that Covid-19 is quickly becoming the great equalizer. Today I started reading a new book, Post Corona, from Crisis to Opportunity, by Scott Galloway.
He starts the book with two theses. First, the pandemic’s most enduring impact will be as an accelerant. Second, in any crisis there is opportunity; the greater and more disruptive the crisis, the greater the opportunities.
As exhibit A, prof G points to the recent and large changes in e-commerce, video conferencing, tele-healthcare and grocery delivery.
I am only at the beginning of the book. There may be other examples later-on. Yet, I wonder what changes Covid-19 will be accelerating in two specific areas.
First, we need a change in how we share information and news.
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.
The recent years have shown that an educated citizenry we are not. Knowing what is fact from fiction has become much harder. When you listen to the Whitehouse press briefings, you even wonder what the title journalist still stands for.
I sense we are on the cusp of a major change in how we write, fact check and distribute the news. Content moderation at Twitter*, YouTube and Facebook are still using training wheels. Fox News appears to realize after so many years, that lies and deceit may be bad for business*. Yet, the answer to the question what information can we trust, is not always clear to me.
The second area I wonder about is infrastructure. The United States is due for a major overhaul and investment in our infrastructure: roads, tunnels, bridges, energy distribution, and high-speed internet access.
Elon Musk is leading the way on multiple fronts. There are the Tesla Powerwall, Solar Roof and panels. Starlink is bringing internet to previously hard to reach areas of the United States. The Boring Company makes tunneling easier. Another Musk brainchild is Hyperloop. Virgin Hyperloop demonstrated on Nov 8, 2020 the first passengers traveling safely on a hyperloop. However, the first true applications will be outside of the United States. As trains don’t deal well with sand, the first hyperloop project will be in Abu Dhabi, and eventually to Dubai. The first hyper loop project in the US may be the Great Lakes project and connect Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Its timeline is unclear to me.
Nevertheless, Elon Musk is only one person. Jeff Bezos focusses his billions on e-commerce, distribution (planes, vans, warehouses) and groceries. Bill Gates is looking at education, global health, fighting infectious diseases, and a new nuclear reactor design, through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and TerraPower. The Google guys have the X moonshot company with some really interesting projects. Some infrastructure-related projects are Taara and Loon to provide internet access, Makani and Dandelion in the energy generation space, and Waemo self-driving taxis.
Which other billionaire is pouring in money to accelerate a better US infrastructure? How much is the US government investing? Covid-19 will change where we work from, where we travel and how travel. It is another major opportunity to pay close attention to.
December 29, 2020
Under the Tree
This Christmas Santa brought T-shirts, pyjamas, a newspaper, and a homemade tool belt for the barbecue-chef, spices included. Our son gifted us a yearlong subscription to the New York Times — so we are no longer limited to 3 articles. Our daughter crafted a tool-belt for when I am outside tending the smoker. I love all the gifts.
Thinking about all this for a moment, I realize I am both quite content with all the things I already have. It must be very hard for my family to come up with gifts.
I also realize I start to appreciate the things associated with older age. Nice pyjamas, a cup of poor-over coffee, and a newspaper (even if it is in electronic format), and you can picture my weekend early mornings.
So, I went this morning on my regular 4 miles run in the neighborhood, and an afternoon hike up the Santa Cruz mountains.
Now, get off my lawn!
December 26, 2020
The Great Equalizer
Covid-19 is quickly becoming the great equalizer, where location or how deep your pockets no longer matter as much.
Soccer teams have to play behind closed doors, or at least with a fraction of the supporters in the stadium. Home team advantage is no longer a factor in the quiet stadium. The 12th player is absent from the stands and unable to sway the momentum. Also the revenue stream from ticket sales must be dwindling. While match-day revenue is smaller than broadcast or merchandise revenue, it still represents $150M annually if you are Manchester United or Barcelona. Or to put it in competitive terms, $150M in match-day revenue equals the cost of two Kevin De Bruynes. Of course, with season ticket holders, the revenue isn’t all gone. Manchester United is reporting $30M less match-day revenue in 2020.
Also the US university education system is going through a transformation. Universities are putting more and more of the lectures online and are figuring out how to serve students remotely. Why pay $50-$70K/year to be on campus at these elite universities, when you take the same classes online? Of course, taking classes over Zoom is not the same as being on campus. Taking the classes from your home is not the same as taking them in person. And then there are the evening social events and student parties. I am not advocating that we move to an all-remote university system. However, I can see how this can make education more available, and at a lower cost.
Lastly, this pandemic will have an effect on housing costs. We are getting more comfortable working remotely. More and more people are moving away from the expensive areas such as Silicon Valley. This will likely stagnate house prizes in the area or worse. More people will be able to join some of the big tech companies, while working from other locations. Some companies are creating satellite teams, bringing multiple team members together in a new location, others allow people to work from anywhere in the US. Regardless, proximity to the Bay Area will no longer be as big of a factor as it is today.
December 20, 2020
Ningxia
Rotten is a fantastic documentary on Netflix about the global food supply. It appalls and is informational. As I was grilling fish, chicken and tons of vegetables tonight, I watched the wine episode, Reign of Terroir.
Little did I know how the Ningxia is becoming the up and coming wine region in the world. Just as Napa surprised the world in 1976, Ningxia wine surprised the world in 2011 when it won the Decanter award.
I never tasted a Chinese wine, except for a rice wine. And the last time I did, it cost me a pretty penny. Around 1996, as I returned from Hong Kong, I brought home a few bottle of Chinese rice wine. Except I wasn’t a US citizen yet, and needed to pay customs on all the things I brought back with me.
After watching the documentary, I am now very curious to taste a real Ningxia wine.
December 19, 2020
Chariots of Fire
I never watched the 1981 award-winning movie Chariots of Fire. Yet, the theme song by Vangelis is engrained in my mind as a sad song.
I have a vague memory of a story my parents told me, about how the song was used while the names of the death scrolled daily across the television screen. I was too young to remember the actual international crisis or war which lead to this tragedy. However, the story left a lasting impression on me and forever associated the song with death.
As Trump has been commander-in-hiding for a while now, and the GOP is the party of accomplices, it would be an impressive video to repeat my memory and to truly never forget. It would be a testament of failed leadership to list those who died of covid, while playing Chariots of Fire. It would take a while sadly, as of today in the USA, over 331,588 people have died, attributed to covid-19.
Although Christmas and New Year should be a peaceful season, and a season of hope for a better year, we should never forget the past four years.
December 18, 2020
Management Discussions in the TikTok and Netflix Era
Read a book, attend a conference, listen to a podcast. The last thing you want to do after you got through your to-do list is to dig into a fascinating article on burn-out or how to scale from a small to mid-size company. The call for getting “outsight” can be a lot for the management group.
So we tried something different. I paired up the managers and each team got assigned to watch an episode of Netflix’s The Playbook (Youtube trailer on coaching and leadership. There are five episodes:
- Los Angeles Clippers’ Doc Rivers
- Two-time FIFA World Cup-winning coach Jill Ellis
- Premier League’s José Mourinho
- Serena Williams’ famed tennis coach, Patrick Mouratoglou
- Hall of fame basketball player and coach Dawn Staley
Watching an episode is light-weight and fun. Also the homework was easy:
- Tell me about the coach and their coaching lessons
- What do you think applies to our group and how can you implement it.
- Would you hire this type of person or coach? Why? Why not?
We made small fun presentations and had a great discussion. This was much easier than doing a bookclub on how Amazon scales. Season 2 is around the corner.
December 17, 2020