Am I Promoting myself or am I Sharing my Knowledge?
Ron Leeman
I deliver Change Management learning that has empowered many professionals to tap into my many years of practical experience and wisdom. Be one of them. Contact me now and ask for further information.
Warning ...
This article could be deemed as Self Promotion given that I have added links to articles, a picture of myself and some of my article stats and feedback?
Let me explain ...
If you haven't already noticed LinkedIn is changing (some say it is becoming more like Facebook) ... puzzles, motivational quotes, meme's, pictures of semi-clad women, 10 of this/5 of that/8 of the other, notifications of births/marriages/deaths, political & religious comment and of course self-promotion. And guess what, I have just come across one selling a car via a LinkedIn Pulse article!
I have resisted doing any of these things as much as I can and I have actively voiced my opposition to numerous updates that I think were inappropriate and should not have been posted ... yes a Change Manager resisting change! Unfortunately I think I am fighting a losing battle and I have to admit that I have recently succumbed to the odd promotion of my change IP (not necessarily via my articles) which I have used as a kind of tester to see what kind of reaction I get. But I do feel somewhat feel uncomfortable doing it.
I still believe that LinkedIn has value as a networking and knowledge sharing platform and in the main I use it that way e.g.:
- Actively input to many Group discussion threads on change.
- Publish LinkedIn Pulse articles related to change.
Regarding 2. above for those of you that follow me and read my articles you know that I publish two different types of articles:
- Specific “change” related articles e.g.:
If you want to read any if these, or others I have published, just go to my profile ... they are all on there.
- Life & Times of a Change Manager articles which chronicle some of the “change” assignments I have previously been involved in since 1974 e.g.:
To the point of this article ...
One of the biggest and possibly most controversial changes to LinkedIn was to Groups in October last year.
Moving on ...
As a result of recently publishing my latest Life & Times article and sharing to my change Groups I received the following message from the Moderator of one of those Groups …
“In the XXX Group we aim to promote a dialogue with the other members and to avoid self-promotion. Unfortunately, your post did not meet those requirements and I deleted it. For future reference we invite you to add some context to your posts in order to involve other members in the discussion that focuses on organisational change management, instead of posting a link to your website/blog/Pulse. This would be greatly appreciated.”
This confused/puzzled/mystified/perplexed me somewhat … but sometimes that’s not unusual!
When I get into this state I start to question if what I am doing is right or not. The problem with this is I am not the best person to answer those questions because I am biased and cannot be truly subjective.
Anyway to continue ...
As a result of the message from the Group Moderator, after giving it some thought, I replied with the aim of supporting my decision to share which included things such as:
- “I am fully aware of the guidelines of the XXX Group …”
- “I have had previous message exchanges with XXX on the subject that is why I added context to the post …”
- ”This article is already receiving favourable comments such as … "
- "As with my other articles it is intended to share knowledge and learning ..."
-
"I shared this article to the Group (as well as others) rather than posting a link ... this is what LinkedIn recommend you do ... "
In answer to this I received the following (a synopsis):
- “The content is mostly self-promotional”.
- “Not in line with the group regulations”.
- “We delete several discussions every day for the same reasons”.
- “The way the article was submitted was deemed to be more in self-promotional terms.
- “It still comes across as self-promotional”.
The dialogue continued:
I replied …
- “The article is intended to show people how I managed a specific change initiative with the intention of people learning from it”.
- “How better to share knowledge and learning than by real life case studies".
- “It also highlights the tools and techniques I have used which have proven to be of interest to readers”.
- You have previously allowed articles 2d and 3b so there is inconsistency”.
The Group Moderator replied …
- “If in the future you want to contribute with relevant discussions to the XXX, you are welcome. But you would have to adhere to the group rules, which apply to every member of this community”.
- “It may be interesting in the context of your brand and personal Pulse articles, but it can be deemed as self-promotional in the context of the XXX group”.
OK I took all of this on board and as I am always willing to learn I decided to take a look at what I was doing in the context of the above to explore whether what I was doing was either:
- Promoting myself (as I was being told) or;
- Sharing my knowledge (which is what I thought I was doing).
As a first port of call I looked at some definitions:
Self Promotion ...
- Things that you do or say in order to make people notice you and think you are important.
- The action of promoting or publicizing oneself or one’s activities, especially in a forceful way.
- The activity of making people notice you and your abilities, especially in a way that annoys other people.
I have highlighted some of the text because I believe I don't do this, however, I am open to being challenged on that.
Knowledge Sharing ...
- Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, families, communities or organizations.
- The exchange of knowledge between and among individuals and within and among teams, organizational units and organizations.
- Sharing of information, ideas, suggestions and organisationally relevant experiences, of the individual with others.
That’s what I think I do, but again, I am open to being challenged on this.
My perspectives ...
The Life & Times articles that I write:
- Are based on my own experiences, what I have done, why I did it, how I did it, what the outcomes were ... a kind of story telling if you like.
- They contain, what I believe to be, interesting and useful information on various tools & techniques, change interventions and pointers for people to learn from.
- I chose to brand the articles the way I did to try and show a logical progression of assignments (a bit like chapters of a book).
- What you read in the articles is merely a synopsis of the assignment as a whole.
- In the body of the articles I use graphics to aid/emphasise the content … remember a “picture is worth a thousand words”.
- Occasionally I add a picture of myself (as I did in this article … lol), a “light-hearted” graphic or a personal anecdote just to break things up a bit to hopefully maintain the readers interest.
What you don't see when you read the articles is the painstaking amount of time I take to research my source material and the considerable effort I put in to carefully select those things that I think would be of most interest to people from a knowledge sharing and learning perspective. A single article can take up to 2 to 3-weeks to pull together.
Whilst these articles do not necessarily attract a great number of views (for the 10 published to-date just over 2500 ... an average of 250 views per article), in terms of overall engagement (likes+comments+shares as a % of views) they seem to be relatively popular:
They have also generated an amount of positive feedback:
So what am I after ...
I would like to ask you for feedback regarding my Life & Times articles. If you haven't read them you may want to pick one at random and take a quick read ... the most representative ones are probably my three latest articles i.e:
- The Life & Times of a Change Manager - Part 3a.
- The Life & Times of a Change Manager - Part 3b.
- The Life & Times of a Change Manager - Part 3c.
The questions I have are:
- Are they Self Promoting?
- Do they facilitate Knowledge Sharing?
- Are they a bit of both? If you think they are can you give me an indication of which way they err e.g.:
- Self Promoting = x%?
- Knowledge Sharing = x%?
- Any additional comments you may wish to add.
Thanks for taking time to read this article and thanks in advance for your input.
Reinventing Change Management
8 年I see this issue as two admirable objectives at odds with each other. One set of rules seeks to promote deep discussion and the other rules are designed to raise awareness of new content being published. The challenge is how to balance the two objectives within the same set of rules. At the same time, this discussion begs the question: do all groups have to focus equally on both objectives when there are so many available groups? For example, I choose to focus my attention on organizational change and hold membership in over 20 LI groups that directly or indirectly address topics in this field. Over the last few years, most of these groups have migrated to curating content published by group members and only a couple actively promoting learning-focused discussion. Two of these groups have over 50,000 members, but use different group rules. One had 24 posts in the past day, one a discussion starter (no responses) and 23 links to blog posts. The other works to limit posts with external links in order to focus on a couple new discussions. Two groups, two objectives. I need both - one to broaden my awareness and the other to challenge my thinking by forcing me to articulate my understanding and beliefs.
Continuing on my journey to strengthen the resilience of individuals, teams, leaders, & organizations, that are navigating transitions to change.
8 年Great post, Ron. My answer is: Yes.
Leadership Rockstar (Apparently) | Keynote | Writer | Commentator | Kaleidoscope Shaker | Influencer | Co-Founder the Mudd Partnership | Co-Creator of the Hexagon??coaching prog. & DIPOCA??framework | Human (Absolutely)
8 年Difficult not to get vexed about this as it's unfair and unproven. To my mind you are sharing content based on original practise, with your personality & this will be because you want to be read and you want to engage. You're going to upset some on both scores, particularly if they have neither the practise or the personality. As Jane Austen wrote, "To come with a well informed mind is to fail to pander to the vanities of others". I had a similar experience with one particular group a couple of years ago. It turned out the Moderator/Gatekeeper had set up the group for their own self-promotional purposes. I was simply sharing original content and thinking, but it rocked their boat!!! Needless to say I left the group. Keep doing what you're doing & how you're doing it. Keep the thing the thing & most importantly be you!
Executive Coach/CEO Advisor, Talent and Leadership Consultant, Executive Search, Mentor to Execs in Transition
8 年I appreciate and support Gail's position. There are many ways to share knowledge without referencing yourself. Why not reference others and expand the knowledge. I really hate, and usually withdraw from, groups that allow self-promotion. When I want to share knowledge, I ask for feedback. Perhaps I've written an article I want some commentary on. I state upfront that I'm looking for feedback. That's it. I don't like all of my other articles, state what I've done, touted my accomplishments. If you want to cite a change example, just put it out there. Why do you have to say you did it if not for self-promotion. Very much support Gail's position and I'm grateful for her and her team's diligence in moderating the group
Original 100 Change Agent
8 年love what u r doing Ron. Research shows that change consultants just do not promote themselves enough. your promotions for the most part share critical knowledge that many of us can use.