Linked Apart

Hi Jay,

Linkedin is growing fast, and like an awkward teenager, we have our clumsy moments. When you are developing a lot of new functionality, some bugs will sneak in. But you know, we're all committed to making a great product. One of the reasons so many of us are hanging out here!

I'd love to hear more, especially about the philosophical issues. We try hard to balance a web 2.0/cluetrain philosophy while respecting that people's professional livelihood is often at stake on LinkedIn. Any way we can get better is welcome!

Hi Christina,

Thanks for writing. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised.

I certainly understand change, growth and stumbles, but am not pleased at how much of this is being handled. I just don't see that much being developed on the front in functionality-wise that benefits the end user. In fact, it seems that every time a new feature is added something else gets taken away.

LI recently added group search capability. This is great and long needed. But simultaneously, LI restricted the number of open requests to join groups to ten. Not the best, but what was really bad was the rollout - i.e., that end users were not told, they had to get surprised in a dark alley that they were applying to too many groups at once. Something that is not entirely within their control; namely group managers may take a long time to respond to some.

The dark alley stuff really bugs me. I've had my account suspended or restricted at 9:00pm on a Friday night. Have you tried to reach LI customer service over the weekend <grin>? It seems to me that LI CS could simply be more friendly in their approach before implementing adverse actions without notice.

How about publishing an 800 number for customer service and staffing it.

On the philosophical side of things. LI promotes small strong networks, but many, many professional networkers including myself know the real power is in having a large loose network of 'weak' affiliations; in addition to the close-strong connections. Technology wise this difference could be easily captured by indicating a strong/weak, close/open network connection in a flag form.

I suppose one must ask the question why is it in LinkedIn's advantage to limit networking connections? So many LI activities seem to be doing this.

I'm currently on Day 6 of dealing with my Tucson Networking group being suspended. Can't get my questions answered, LI policy clarified or even pointed out which specific aspect of any policy I've supposedly violated. Just snipets of information that doesn't get anything resolved.

I like LI. I think that there's a core of some greatness here and that's why I promote it so strongly. But I think in LI being cautious for genuine abuse LI is overlooking much. Your value is in your happy clients. Are your clients happy? What sort of focus group studies are you doing? How does LI calibrate customer satisfaction, and in turn improve upon dissatisfaction topics systematically?

</grin>

Hey Jay,

I'm sharing your email with the folks who handle groups, and CS. (I do recommendations, as you may have noticed, as well as working on something new and exciting coming this fall).

We try hard to set expectations, provide previews into what's coming, and write clear copy so folks know what's going on -- check out the blog and mariosundar on twitter. We're doing regular usability tests every month so we can learn more, as well as tons of other user research. We are learning a ton, and feedback like yours and others here helps.

I know it sounds cheesy, but we know we have to work hard if we're going to be the best, and I hope you keep using us and keep complaining so we know how we can improve.

Hi Christina,

I think that if folks in the other LI departments responded as positively as you do that LI as a whole will do quite well.

I do get curious about specific issues, like when told I'm in violation of some policy that I can't get a clarification of which policy. You'd think that excerpting a section of the User Agreement would be relatively easy. My problem is that I've read the UA multiple times, diligently try to follow it, yet still end up with various types of suspensions/restrictions on my account/group(s).

I also wonder if other people are having similar problems.