Please Be Yourself

Dear LinkedIn,

I’ve been a fan and user for quite some time. Until recently, most moves you’ve made seemed to make a whole lot a sense to me. Things like “groups” and “answers” and suggesting people I might “know” are very useful. In general, LinkedIn is a great tool to build a professional network, get to understand and learn something from your peers and share with them. And, Twitter’s loss seems to be your gain. The posts (updates) I receive are much more relevant because they come from within my network. But to me, I think you’re beginning to lose your way.

Why is it valuable to me when 90% of the “updates” I receive are about endorsements or who someone is following? Who ever said they wanted this? By the way, I have yet to see one “like” on any of these posts. So hopefully I am not alone.

Let me double back to the new “endorse me” stampede. Is it really too much trouble for someone to actually write a recommendation about someone? Something we all can understand and read between the lines as to how worthy it is. What we have now is a check-the-box merit badge system. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. To what end?

So here’s what I’m asking. Don’t try to be Facebook. Don’t try to be Twitter. Be yourself. Be someplace I can go and get a sense of what is going on in my extended world. Thanks for listening.