The More or Less of LinkedIn!


Pic courtesy Anna Bradley's books
I have been a LinkedIn faithful from the time it started out in India. I still remember; in the good ol' days we had to wait for someone to send us a invite to gain an entry into Linkedin. I have had the experience of experiencing most of the avatar's that Linkedin has gone through.
There is a nice link here that documents the timeline: A Brief History of Linkedin

Now that I've been using Linkedin for so long as a user, A few weeks ago I thought, hey let me put on the hat of a "Intelligent Product User" or let me say a "Product Manager", what would I like to see More of as part of Linkedin features and what would I like to see Less of as part of what I see everyday while going through the site. I would call this "personalization" and if in case that is already available as part of being a Linkedin Premium Member, then feel free to skip this post.

And no this is not a rant! If some aspects of this gets into the Product Backlog of Linkedin I would definitely be happy.

So here goes, The More or Less of Linkedin!

The More: (Features that I would like to see anew)

  1. Having updates from a "Selected/Selectable List of Influencers | Person | People | Company| # hashtags" at the top of the heap, everytime I login, so that I do not miss any item that piques my interest. My intent would be to "Favouritize the selected list" and "to allow me to set a configuration that says show at top or in a separate tab"
  2. Ability to set filters for certain kind of images and allow my timeline not to show such pictures so that LinkedIn's sanctity is upheld. (Various "good morning" posts, Posts of "Gods\Goddess". Image recognition and Pattern recognition of kind of images that I would typically not like to see in the "Professional Network". 
  3. The same could be applied for "Stop notifying me of updates\comments on this post"
  4. A way to disable the pop up that appears in the bottom-left that says alert set, alert removed, etc etc, It is better that the pop could auto-vanish in around 5 sec's. The repeating notification saying 1 of N, 2 of N, 3 of N, could be handled better by auto-vanishing banner which could say "xxxx notification of xxxx deleted" Right now it stays until I click on close.
  5. Have a option that says "Watch later" or mark to be read later, Now-a-days there are a lot of video's, podcasts, vlogs that are of interest that are making their way into my feed, In case there is an option that says "Watch later" or "Mark for later" and a UI element that houses all the "Watch later" stuff it would be great.
  6. Alerts that say a "Saved Job" is expiring today as part of the Notifications pane. Now we only get to know once we go to the saved location and then miss out on the opportunity.
  7. Show post statistics if only 1-5 people have seen it, Some posts do not get statistics filled unless a certain number of views are done, If along with this, if we get to know "What should be enhanced to get more views" that will help us to use LinkedIn even-more as a medium of information sharing and blogging.
  8. Without relying on AI/ML bring in a "Show me more topics like this" option, In case I happen to read about something new and I'm interested in reading more, this option will definitely help.
  9. Allow me to customize the news-feed section to what I want to see other than the only-two options that currently exist, Allow drag and drop-ability in the news-feed. 
  10. Allow me to write an article and post them at scheduled times.
  11. Add more editing features at the time of writing the article, like "Preview mode" "Highlights" etc etc


    The Less: (Features that I would like to skip seeing)
    1. Posts that I have already read, Ad's that I have already seen, Promoted stuff that have already been scrolled through in my timeline.
    2. I follow a few hyper active Linkedin folks and their feed and activity fills up my timeline, I keep getting their posts even if they go ahead and thank someone for their comment, So this feature would be "Do not notify me on updates". And an option that says "Notify me on updates"
    3. Less promotions of "try Premium free for 1 month" or "Your so and so contact is a premium user, so its best if you are too" find out some other modes of making money or being subtle in the approach. The best would be to show some value that has been derived out of going Premium(includes Linkedin Learning) and make it relevant on the basis of the immense information that is being stored in those cookies 
    4. Hiding profile visits by enabling "incognito" mode for folks who visit your profile, if someone has spent his valuable time and effort and has visited my profile, I would like to who it was and would like to get in touch for free. I will not bother everyone who visits my profile by asking favors or trying to up-sell my ware. 
    5. The messaging widget: If there is one item that pops up and have to bring down is the "Be default enabled" "Messaging widget", even though there is a tab right at the top for messages, this hyper-active widget decides to go up on every page I visit, and is a major disturbance. Thank goodness this is not the case in the mobile app.
    6. Once a candidate makes an application via  in-quick-apply, the application is lost to the world with respect to the applicant, there is no way the applicant get's to know even in case of a reject, not being-shortlisted, forget all of that, there is not even a email as to why, or if the recruiter has viewed my profile, I agree there will be thousands of applicants and the recruiter has only 8-9 hrs per day, How can LinkedIn make this process more efficient is the question?

    I would love to hear your views. Please leave a comment in the comment box below so that I can learn from your experience.
    If you liked the article...please share with your network!, In case you would like me to speak/train/coach about this stuff, do get LinkedIn with me.
    Regards,
    Manuswath

    P.S
    Manuswath is an experienced technocrat advocating Brands, Brand-Strategy, Brand-building, Products and Product-Management, Marketing, UI/UX/Usability, Process,  Methodology and People. He loves Creativity, Brain-Storming, Product-Articulation, UI/UX, Modern-UI, UI-Design, Coaching, Training, Motivational-Speaking, Productivity, Confidence, Positivity, being a corporate speaker, entrepreneur and mentor... all dashed with a pinch-of-good-natured-humor.  He doesn't beleive in milestones, the-journey-and-the-experiences-and-memories is what keeps him going.

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