It’s not me, it’s you LinkedIn

"Happy New Year to all and welcome back to work!"

With that short jolly holiday-season driven missive out of the way, I’m going to take a very long (permanent?) break from LinkedIn for the foreseeable future as I focus on actual useful aspects of both my work and my life instead.

Why you may ask? (Or maybe not, but I’ll go into some detail anyway…as is my personal wont, and to some people’s dismay, I’ve never had a problem expressing my opinions on a variety of issues.)

Well, primarily being here is no longer a productive use of time, in any and seemingly all, cases (I believe it’s actually never been a truly productive expenditure of time to begin with – at least for me – which is why I barely load up the site maybe once a week these days -- but I digress.) 

Sure, I’ve tried to do the whole “social media driven engagement” thing – let me count (just a few – but not all -- of) the ways:

1) Sending invites to people with specially crafted notes of actual original thoughts and ideas - specifically mentioning that I’d love to connect with them to discuss the concepts presented in the introduction a bit further. Those initial invites are quickly accepted. And all subsequent follow-up notes to initiate a potential next stage of discussion (setting up a time to chat on the phone, sending an email with more information, etc.) were quickly ignored once the original invite was accepted.

2) Accepting probably far too many invites from a wide variety of people with supposedly interesting LI profiles over the course of an approximately 18-month period – and sending them a quick return note soon after to say something along the lines of “Thanks for sending along an invite – great to connect – let me know if you need anything going forward in the future. I’ll help out or use my connections to introduce you to the right people if I can.” Apparently, I'm blessed in the knowledge that none of my connections need any type of help ever.

3) People sending me invites – while never actually looking at my profile – either pre- or post-invite acceptance – and the added bonus of never hearing from them again – other than the occasional random unsolicited blatant sales pitch usually within 24 hours of accepting their invite. So, assuming most are there to collect connections for the sake of boasting an impressive number in their “network” -- rather than actually being of any interest/help/use to anyone.

4) Reading other people’s posts in my timeline – mainly people that I’m not directly connected to for the most part but have been “liked” or commented on by my connections. I take the opportunity to comment myself -- with more than just “great post” or a useless LI “like” – but attempt at giving a “value added” concurrent and/or alternative view on what has been posted to generate a supplementary idea or POV for further discussion. But no additional discussion occurs. (A suggested “fun time” for you – rightly slag off NPS as an inconsistent, and highly subjective, way to measure customer satisfaction given how it is so easily gamed across the entire scope of it – for one. For example, in a few short relatively easy steps, I could make the same company appear to be the best/worst in their category by manipulating and/or omitting selected data from the same grouping sets. The “pro-NPS community” doesn’t quite appreciate that – but they can’t refute it either. Thankfully, for the most part, gone are the days where NPS scores helped determine year-end bonuses – the next step is getting rid of NPS as a CX measurement tool in any and all cases.)

5) Attempting to engage my connections by posting a general open update several times over the course of a few months – “Anyone need any help/questions answered/bounce ideas off of/etc. in the worlds of CX and/or digital transformation – I would love the chance to help out you and/or your business in any way possible with no commitment going forward” and never getting a single response (although some people were kind enough to “like” the posts at the time.)

6) Writing, through the existing convoluted LI system, various employees of companies I’ve interacted with on some level to suggest ways to improve their product/service (*cough* Google and their Pixel team for one – on a multi-level basis (UK, USA, Global in numerous levels of seniority throughout the company) *cough*.)  Notes carefully written from the perspective of someone who specialises in “Customer Experience” on a global basis; and how to take even baby steps to orientate your business/department/service/product to work better for your customers and develop better methodologies and practices to respond to now-irritated customers – and subsequently hearing absolutely nothing back from any of the people I took the time to attempt to connect with.

7) Wrote “engaging deeply-thought out original content” in a series of posts on LI over a period of a few months – that eventually generated nothing of value at the end of the day. Sure, again, there were “likes” to be had – and some were even kind enough to leave comments of significance – but it never led anywhere in terms of either work prospects, or even follow-up conversations. A real shame – because, for one example of the issues I repeatedly tackled -- the FinTech and Retail Banking communities in particular -- still need massive help in the CX aspects of their businesses. But, for one, it is not the focus of FinTech “at the moment” (that being over the past three-plus years – when it should be a “core aspect” to their, and all, businesses on a daily basis.) Conversely, some of the posts I’ve written that I’d consider “pithy” written to test out my own theories on content here — posts I’d consider on the verge of “useless dreck” that took no significant thought on my part -- were very popular for some reason and only disheartened me further. 

I’ve dubbed this last particular practice of post philosophy “The Oleg Theory” (obviously!) – although there are several prominent drivers of this specific philosophy across the entire scope of LinkedIn - sadly. There is also a vast number of what I’ve dubbed “Water is Wet” posts too – which should be fairly obvious what those might contain in terms of useful information - given the title I’ve labelled them with, but the ones that are some relative highly repeated version of “Don’t work for an asshole – it’s not worth it” still appear fairly regularly in my timeline – and they all garner massive amount of “love” – love being in the social media sense – and therefore ultimately useless.)

The quality of “engaging content” these days on LinkedIn seems to be dubious (at best) – particularly given the “business networking” angle that LinkedIn is supposed to have (when really it’s only current use is a vehicle for blatant self-promotion – and that’s it.) Sure, it was great to learn through just a few curated posts in my feed in the past month:

1) That Keith Richards recently turned 75 years old – with a meme created and posted for the occasion. You know, the Rolling Stones guitarist. Assuming a massive LinkedIn user too? Perhaps he’ll become a “Linked INfluencer” soon enough…. Here’s hoping!

2) Glad to hear your teenage offspring is doing well in their chosen life – but how is that business-related exactly? (I am not about to begin posting about the exploits of my 7-year-old lad – because without even having to think about it, I know it’s not relevant to the assembled business audience.) And it’s great to hear your daughter is engaged to be married to her long-time sweetheart too and will be getting married in the next few months. Wouldn’t this be better placed on your Facebook profile at the end of the day though? (Aside from “Zuck” stealing that informational content and marketing it back to you with a bunch of relevant and weird wedding ceremony ads.)

3) That is a rad interior for a nightclub and the photos are nice too…. What now?

4) #MAGA – really? Because you’ve escaped the clutches of 4chan, Infowars, Drudge Report, Breitbart, twitter, reddit, etc. why are you posting objectively bullshit political posts full of crap conspiracy theories that can be debunked with a five second Google search – including ones that are fiction at the best of times….and this is definitely not “the best of times” currently these days. (This goes for the pro-Brexit crowd too – as they’ll soon discover when it all comes crashing down here in the UK.)

Looking at it introspectively for a moment, I’m not really suited for LinkedIn to be fair – I don’t really “do” self-promotion well (aside from the occasional last minute “Come watch me on TV in a few minutes” posts for my own personal “shits & giggles” and to mock myself online for entertainment value if nothing else.) To be self-reflective for a moment, I’m actually really shite at self-promotion – perhaps something for me to work on in 2019? (just kidding!)

My work in CX and digital doesn’t lend itself to promotion as I’m more about client confidentiality than shouting to the world about what I’m currently working on. The level of seniority required for potential client pool to draw from – well they don’t hang out on LinkedIn either – other than profiles they got someone to create and either:

1) Completely ignored once created

2) Assume they put together to garner a high “Klout” score (is that still a thing?) for some odd reason rather than a true networking and connecting purpose

3) Get their company PR department intern to post content to on their behalf.

I’m struggling greatly to see a value to this LinkedIn experiment at the end of the day – and have been struggling with it over the past few years as LinkedIn as degraded to a series of joke punchlines. 

I’ve been a member since the “early days” of the site (believe I joined in March 2004 – *gulp* almost 15 years ago – and I even got plucked out of relative LinkedIn “obscurity” as one of the first “one million LinkedIn subscribers” when that was a thing a few years ago *virtual gold star* for me!)

That all being said, I’ve virtually met some great people here over the years that have opinions on things that I’ve derived value from reading and discussing via LI message and trading notes about (although no one new added to that list recently in the past few years as it has gone downhill rapidly.)  

But to be honest, I get better content by creating a “Google News Alert” on the subjects and issues that are of particular interest to me and my business - and then corresponding with people away from the LI system via WhatsApp, email or telephone. 

As a somewhat unrelated aside, I’ll toss this out though as just one example of something in the business world to watch with interest going forward -- the eventual and inevitable rapid decline of Tesla is going to be a fun one to track over the next few months. 

For one, they’ll never be able to deliver all the cars they’ve sold in a relevant time frame to the increasingly frustrated consumer base – which is quickly growing disillusioned (at least outside Silicon Valley – where for some reason they still regard Elon as a demi-god of some sort.) 

This, in conjunction with the massive quality issues that are going to crop up due to poor build quality, and their complete lack of even a basic CX methodology to deal with just that issue alone (beyond tweeting Elon to ask for help) is going to make someone a great book/PhD business case study soon enough.

So, before I sign off, if I was going to offer one piece of advice going forward to the LI brass? (Because, at heart, I try to be a helpful person.)

Aside from forgoing all social media platforms unless you are using it for first-level front-line customer service because really at the end of the day, what’s the point beyond that function? -- the one feature LinkedIn needs to do away with ASAP – the “Private Mode” feature (invisible/anonymous) viewers of one’s profile. 

Sure – we all know it is recruiters looking at your profile and checking you out (I’d say I get about 50 anonymous viewers a month – although I don’t really track it that closely – maybe more, maybe less – who knows….)

LinkedIn is supposed to be about networking at the end of the day (but it’s clearly not) and having thousands of “nameless and faceless ghosts” floating around the system devalues it greatly. 

If you don’t want people to “see” you or your profile, think of an alternative way to stalk them – or Jesus, strike up some sort of conversation after you view their profile if it is of any interest – initially directly relevant or not -- and see where it leads. It’s funny what can happen when two people have an actual conversation and trade thoughts and ideas. What are you so afraid of?

So, with that, I’ll exit stage right – if you need to reach me, well my ideal contact info is here on LinkedIn for all to read :D 

All that being said, I’m going to miss all the fake quotes continually attributed to Steve Jobs though – if he really said all the things attributed to him in all those awful memes that are continuously posted for some reason, he’d have never had a chance to breathe, much less run any sort of company. 

Happy New Year and thanks for all the fish!