LinkedOut

It’s time for a new type of network, which focuses on people you aren’t connected with, so you find different thinking, outside of the echo chamber of your circles of influence.

LinkedIn has been good to me — I’ve built up a good network of people who i’m fortunate to have really interesting conversations with, but it, as so many network platforms do, has many design flaws: the commercial model gets in the way (prioritises advertising, promoted posts and featured content over interesting content from your network); and it is the filter bubble defined — “only invite people you know”.

I believe the point of networks is to create new connections to learn from, rather than simply reinforcing what you already know.

There’s no shortage of “LinkedIn” competitors, many of which are built upon blockchain — seemingly trying to solve the (non-existent?) problem of whether you actually spent time with someone in real-life in a job, or whether you actually know someone or not. They’re aiming to decentralise the platform, which is good and valuable so no-one organisation owns the data in and on the connections, but they’re effectively redesigning distributed rolodexes.

And no-one needs a rolodex. They need the unLinkedIn.

What about designing a platform which looks at your existing network, and makes suggestions of the type of people who aren’t part of it already?

If you’re heavily over-indexed on following content from affluent middle-aged white men (hello, marketing industry) — the platform makes suggestions of content from BAME founders. If you’ve liked an article on retail, here are five other people you and your network are not connected to that have posted similar content. Perhaps its as simple as a ‘friend get friend’ concept — where you get to invite someone in your network that none of the rest of your network know, and they do the same, until we’re a number of degrees away from Kevin and his Bacon.

That’s why I subscribe to Stack Magazines (a different magazine every month which you don’t select, but is always fascinating, and almost always outside of my current interest-set), why I use andco.life for coworking (so there’s a different place to work every day, rather than a dedicated desk in the same location each time), why I visit tube stations I’ve never been to before just for the sake of it, and why I created OneDayCurious.

I’m sure there’s a smarter and AIsh way of creating these sorts of networks, but when all algorithms seem to be intent on optimising the feed to remove things which aren’t interesting to you — I believe we need to shift from filtering to agitating, and use algorithms to explore, not just focus, and look to see how we can engineer or at the very least, increase the likelihood of serendipity.

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Matthew Knight is the founder of Foxlark - we help businesses spot, define and fix the problems which hold them back from growing into the future, leaving behind better behaviours and awesome work.