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Posts Tagged ‘Social network’

Linkedin Skill Endorsements Gone Awry? Initial Review & Recommendations!

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

As many of the active LinkedIn users are aware, LinkedIn’s latest feature – social endorsement of “Skills & Expertise” – is in later stage of its beta release and growing like rapid fire in the past few weeks. What’s interesting is LinkedIn brought social validation by your network to this feature they started testing since Feb of 2012 – a social proof for your skills and expertise.

After studying this feature for a few days, I decided to do few social experiments & surveys and my past few weeks of results have been nothing short of eye openers – with respect to user behaviors. While my data set is only limited to my own network, I am quite certain these results would be very akin to majority of LinkedIn users.

While most people endorse as a social convention – “you scratch my back and I scratch your back” – very much similar to how most of us used LinkedIn Recommendations, unlike LinkedIn “Recommendations”, skill endorsements can be removed any time you want after you endorse.

Similar to tweenage kids, I am already seeing immature behavior – where people endorse skills and delete the endorsements if you don’t endorse them back or if you don’t endorse them as many as they endorsed you.

Also, from a sheer value standpoint, an individual’s recommendation for you will always be more valuable than that individual’s endorsement, even though in the long run, # of credible endorsements speak a lot about you than recommendations.

Here are some of my thoughts and conclusions around this social experiment -

Reciprocity seems like an unspoken rule – This seems to be an overwhelming expectation – with my own direct experience as well as with people I spoke with regarding endorsements. Times when people solicit you to endorse them in return for their endorsements and other times they straight up harras you. This is very much akin to some of the spammers in the world of Twitter – You follow me and I will follow you.

When it comes to Endorsements, huge egos are at play – I have purposely ignored to see what would happen if I didn’t “endorse back” someone who deserves some endorsements. To my surprise, their original endorsements have been removed after few days! This is a big shocker for me.
Mutual friends & partiality in endorsements don’t get along – When you rate two peers inconsistently on skills they both pride themselves (like endorse Product manager to only one even though both of them are equally good and skilled at Product management), you start a pissing contest – most of the time without any straight confrontation.

That’s not a skill I am proud off – re-endorse me! – Thanks to LinkedIn’s auto recommendation of skills based on your profile, most of the people I spoke to were unhappy about some of the skills that were automatically chosen for them. I heard one person contemplating to contact all the people who endorsed him on a particular skill to re-endorse for some other more relevant skill. Another wished he could change the skill text without losing the endorsements for that skill.

So, how can LinkedIn make these endorsements more credible and experience less controversial/painful? While it is too soon to conclude where the crowd sourced endorsements could go for LinkedIn, here are some recommendations -

Endorsements are not same as Follow! – People should not be endorsing others and then remove them the next day. If they are not sure about endorsing someone, they should not endorse to begin with.
If you insist on leaving “undo” feature, then at least insist on getting rational feedback on why someone wants to undo their endorsement just a few days after they endorsed that person.
For Credibility, lets focus on Quality than Quantity- LinkedIn can make these endorsements more credibility by offering rich data around individual endorsements and individual motives behind endorsements. Such as -
- Displaying # of endorsements given vs # of endorsements got will give you some understanding of the value of endorsements.
- Publish like an Endorsement Gradient that is calculated based on – # of endorsements given by those who did not get an endorsement vs # of endorsements given by those who got an endorsement.
- Maybe an infographic about who (as in relationship – professional or personal) actually endorsed to learn why they endorsed – if all your endorsements are coming from your family members or close friends who never worked with you, then we know how valuable your endorsements are.
- Percentile the endorsements by skill or overall – When you crowd source people to endorse, some kind of percentile for individual skill endorsements or total endorsements – based on industry, education qualification, # of years of experience, etc – would be very useful.
Educate your users that endorsements are not social convention! – This is very important. When someone on the street says hello to you, you say hello back to them – that is social convention. Endorsements should not be social convention. Period! Educate your users with proper “coach marks” and alerts.

As per LinkedIn users, to create more credibility for your endorsements, stick to following principles -

Tell your endorsors to only endorse if they feel strongly about it. You do the same.
Tell your endorsors that you will not be reciprocating them back. Reiterate that endorsements should not fit social convention. If they try to obligate you, be polite and say that you don’t know enough about them on that particular skill to endorse.

As per endorsing me, take a wild guess!

@Vsistla

Tags: Facebook, Linkedin, Online Communities, Skill, Skills & Expertise, Social network, Twitter
Posted in Anthropology, Attention, Crowd Sourcing, Customers, Endorsements, Follow, Gamification, Influencer, Innovation, Linkedin, Motivators, Professional Connections, Psychology, Relationships, Social Capital, social networks, sociology, Twitter, User Behavior Data, Wisdom of crowd | No Comments »

Startups: Evaluate Gamification Lest You Piss Off Your Users!

Thursday, August 16th, 2012

Gamification methodologies such as “Leaderboard”, “Reputation”, “Badges”, “Rewards” and “Points” are very commonly implemented by startups just to encourage certain user behavior,virality, & increase activity – but not all users respond to these techniques homogeneously.

Gamify at your own peril!

Most of the time, these so called incentives deliver undue results to startups; they are like slow poison – kill user growth; you won’t even know the cause of your user’s dissatisfaction and disengagement;

Many wrong incentives happen to right users.

Let your product and its features become inherent rewards and badges for its users.

Let your user community organize around who gets benefited by the ecosystem and who gets sidelined rather than you implementing fake badges and fluffy leader boards.

For example, on Quora, many reputed and highly successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders volunteer their time and effort in enriching the content for millions of its users.

None of the “who is who” who are active on Quora take such a keen interest and effort in contributing to the community just to get Quora Credits. They don’t do it for tangible or intangible rewards. They are motivated by aspects of social norms and in creating communal good that helps everyone. With any kind of rewards or incentives – especially tangible – these same individuals will not show similar commitment and passion in using Quora. Most of the influencers who are active on Quora don’t seem to be on Mahalo even with tangible rewards like tipping for your answers (sometimes up to $100).

If that is case with tangible rewards, do you think they would actually get motivated by leaderboards, points and credits?

Lets take Twitter as another example. Look at the behavior patters of highest influencers, thought leaders and game changers. If you study those Twitter accounts, few things are very consistent -

These individuals have huge twitter followers. They don’t have followers because they are actively using Twitter. They have followers because of what they have done outside/before Twitter ever came into being. For example Beyoncé Knowles has over 5 millions followers but she has only tweeted once so far. J.K. Rowling Twitter has over 1 million followers but she has sent less than 20 tweets.
These game changers are not motivated by # of followers they can gain in Twitter. In fact some of them don’t even know that they have a huge following on Twitter.
People who follow them – follow them for that one rare opportunity to hear what they are going to say. Millions of followers follow these “no tweet game changers” because of what they have done outside the Twitter sphere.

In the interest of higher user activity and in the name of gamification if Twitter forced its users to take an active role in their platform – by making all its users to “tweet”, Twitter would lose 50% of its user base, especially most of the “no tweet game changers”.

Twitter allows its community of users to inherently reward and gain value from other users while still not forcing any particular behavior on them.

User behavior accountability is very important for all startups and exposing/displaying some of that data with the community has many benefits to the startup as well as to the community.

Exposed user behavior data should actual benefit the community rather than spam, distract and pollute the environment.

Examples of such pollution including publishing user activity to everyone in your community and share with all social networks without explicit permission from your users.

On the other hand, there is a role for sharing some of the user behavior and profile data. For example Twitter exposes other user’s # of Followers, # of Tweets and other valuable information. Similarly Quora exposes # of Followers, # of Questions and # of Answers. Such data is useful for following reasons -

Ability for active users to get/gain more visibility.
Ability for other users to gain from people who are contributing to the ecosystem.

Neither Quora nor Twitter expose/display user data that humiliates or insults any particular user in front of the community. Not only that they never package or repurpose such data to show in a different form like leader board or badges.

Finally they never deprive their users of certain functionality because of such untoward activity. Remember this – when you limit product functionality based on user behavior, realize that many genuine/valuable users might get pulled in this group and that might piss off genuine users who could have otherwise become long term users.

In summary before you define your rewards, reputation points, leaderboards, badges, and or leverage user behavioral data, think of the following -

Do Not force yours to “act” certain way to increase virality of your user base or promote your brand or increase activity in your platform. I am not saying a rule less community. Criteria for rules should not be to promote your brand(aka virality) and increase fake activity in your platform.

When exposing your user activity to other users, in the interest of virality, please keep in mind of your user’s privacy. Most common of these is activity feeds and time lines which are common place in most of the consumer apps/platforms.
Most of the virtual denizens do not need policing – most of the communities figure out a way to reward right behavior without the platform provider needing to police by fake incentives/rewards/leader board. Baring criminal and grossly unsavory situations, most of the time, this rule of thumb applies. Let your community deal with it.
Not all your users will respond to incentives with same interest. Your incentives, tangible or intangible will dictate the type of users you will attract in the long run.
Once again, your product, product benefits, its features, the value created by your users to other users should be the core incentives and motivators.
Never ever tie your “product feature” access to user behavior data. I would use this as a general rule excluding exceptions/fringe cases/unique circumstances.

Tags: Beyoncé Knowles, Data, Facebook, Gamification, Incentives, Leaderboard, Mahalo, Motivators, Online Communities, Quora, Rewards, Social network, Twitter, User Activity, User Behavior Data, User Timeline
Posted in Badges, Customers, Gamification, Incentives, Influencer, Leader Board, Mahalo, Motivations, Motivators, Personas, Quora, Reputation, Rewards, Social Capital, Twitter, User, User Behavior Data | 2 Comments »

What else Twitter could do to become more valuable?

Saturday, May 26th, 2012

I love Twitter but I always felt it could do better …..lot more useful if it continued to innovate – and here are my thoughts -

Image via CrunchBase

Tweet an Email & Email a Tweet: More clearly, I would like to be able to send tweets to an email address and vice versa. Why not? If anything, that seals Twitter’s long term viability. Twitter has built a tremendous platform where its users within the platform are able to communicate one to one, one to many & many to many. Now its time for Twitter to expand their reach into the juggernaut of communication – email!
Quite a few Real time communication platforms – PubNub, Pusher and like have emerged and are going to create new business opportunities for Brands and Platforms that want to control and maintain their own real time communication platforms. This, while might not impact Twitter’s primary user base or market, Twitter could make some strategic movies in either integrating with these platforms or encourage these platforms to collaborate – so that users from their branded ecosystems could communicate to and fro with Twitter users.
Image via CrunchBase

On the entreprise front, Yammer, Chatter and like are making big strides and creating new markets. Twitter should not ignore these networks. Deeply embedding with these platforms is in the best interest of Twitter.
Lastly,Twitter is really a real time LinedIn, in my view. When it comes to relationships,I feel Twitter is creating more value than LinkedIn; Its time for Twitter to start thinking beyond being a broadcast/communication platform. Brand pages concept should be expanded for Twitter users to create a details social profiles – potentially opening opportunities within recruiting space as well.

This blog post is motivated by Chris O’Brien’s comment about Twitter not being a Business ……Thank you, Chris.

Tags: Email address, Facebook, Linkedin, Online Communities, Salesforce Chatter, Social network, Twitter, Yammer
Posted in Chatter, Linkedin, PubNub, Pusher, Real Time, Recruiting, Relationships, social networks, Talent, Tweet, Twitter, Yammer | No Comments »

When it comes to Relationships, Twitter delivers more than LinkedIn!

Friday, May 4th, 2012

I love Linkedin – at least I used to ….

Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Linkedin allowed me to “connect” with my professional relationships, keep in touch and engage. At least that was the promise when you connected with someone via Linedin.

In the past 9 years, LinkedIn’s value creation for “relationship” has only gone down.

Case In Point: In the past 1 month (March 29th to April 29th), I have received about 45 LinkedIn connection requests and 20 of them are from complete strangers I have never met. Out of these 20 strangers, I have accepted requests from 15 of them based on mutual backgrounds and potential value the relationship could generate in the long run.

Anytime I accept a LinkedIn request from complete strangers – who requested the connection with the reason we are on the same LinkedIn group or went to same college, etc – I send a follow on email to find out what evoked them to send me a connection request and if we could have a quick discovery call.

Out of the 15 emails (suggesting them for a discovery/”get to know” call) to these complete strangers who have connected with me via Linkedin – only 2 people have actually responded back to me. That’s less than %15 success rate.

Here’s another stat that drives this message home: My success rate (receiving back an acknowledgement) when I “congratulate” my LinkedIn contacts – when they make progress in their careers is less than 23% on average.

Yes, my experience doesn’t stand for a scientific survey but I feel the writing is on the wall!

On the other hand, lets look at social & personal broadcasting platform – Twitter!

Image via CrunchBase

I have been able to engage meaningful conversations – DMs – via Twitter – even with people who are NOT connected with me via LinkedIn. Most of the DMs to my followers get answered. In the past 1 month, I have initiated DM conversations with 8 different people and ONLY 1 person didn’t respond back to me. That’s just less than 90% success rate.

To keep my relationships fresh, Twitter seem to work out better for me than LinkedIn. That maybe the case for other Linkedin users as well. Most of the time, my LinkedIn emails to people I have known for a long time(or for that matter to new people) don’t get answered.

Here is the bottomline: LinedIn can ignore Twitter at its own peril. Twitter is becoming a relationship platform that could ultimately threaten LinkedIn.

When a user signs up for LinkedIn, currently they have options to either create an account with their email ID or by using Facebook connect.

It is time LinkedIn allowed people to not only sign up with Twitter IDs but also accept LinkedIn requests via Twitter handles – not just email address.

LinkedIn Sign Up Using Facebook ....

If I further dissect LinkedIn and Twitter – both these platforms have distinct roles to play in the world of networking, conversations and relationships.

The biggest reason LinkedIn still “rule the roost” when it comes to relationships is because of the features such as resume like profiles, ability to offer a dynamic rolodex and so forth. If Twitter can address those deltas, Twitter could potentially threaten LinkedIn’s business – if not immediately, maybe in the long run.

Also, traditional recruiters and head hunters are still using Linkedin as their primary source of talent search, but with detailed Twitter user profile pages that addresses needs of recruiters and head hunters, the shift for Twitter from being a broadcast/conversational platform to be a broadcast/conversational/recruiting platform.

So, either LinkedIn could wait for the inevitability or maybe strike a deal with Twitter to integrate LinkedIn Profile pages within Twitter User Profile pages – this way, LinkedIn can preempt Twitter from creating their own resume like profile pages.

Here is my bottom line – my relationships via Twitter are looking more richer and active than via LinkedIn and I feel that’s a sign!

@Vsistla

Tags: Linkedin, Online Communities, Professional Networks, Recruiting, Relationships, Social network, Twitter
Posted in Constant Innovation, Innovation, Linkedin, Network, Professional Connections, Recruiting, Relationships, Social Capital, social networks, Talent | No Comments »

Zombie Relationships: Facebook & Linkedin!

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Recently someone told me that they don’t read any emails coming from Linkedin and suggested me to contact them directly via their emails instead through Linkedin messaging.

That got me thinking about the connections and friends we have built in the past half a dozen or so years – via Linkedin & Facebook.

There is a reason why I try to contact my Linkedin contacts via Linkedin messaging – the fear that the person will not even recognize my email if I send a direct email. At least if I send it via Linkedin, they can quickly look at my background and at least realize that I am part of their Linkedin contacts. That’s travesty but that’s true.

Why did we come to where we are today …….

Linkedin was one of the first social networks I embraced despite joining many others that came before that. Like me, most of the first wave of Linkedin users were very eager to connect and link with others – on just the criteria of being on the same network. It was the “in” thing for all of us – professionals and students like.

While people who are already Linkedin users were lot more cautious when accepting friend requests via Facebook, most of the users who are new to social networks were lot more accepting towards Facebook requests. Similar behavior persisted on Linkedin as well from first time social network users.

At a broad level, most of the connections have fallen into one of these categories -

Connected with people you knew in real world until that point - emotional connections.
Connected with anyone you met at a networking event or party – in hopes of a job or date or some short term incentive - opportunistic connections.
Connected with anyone who are contacts by situation – like your college acquaintances, your current girl friend’s/boy friend’s friends, etc – situational connections.
Connected due to obligations – your friends friends, your office colleagues, your boss etc – obligatory connections.

This overly complacent behavioral patterns led to couple of scenarios -

1. Even thought you are connected to people on Linkedin and Facebook – you are not emotionally connected with them – even as casual acquaintances.

2. Due to emotionless connections – over the years – with growing & changing socio, economic, cultural & geographical parities (fact of life) between the so called “friends/contacts”, these so called friends turned short of fiends.

Due to the above reasons – our situational, obligatory & opportunistic connections have turned into sour puss within our existing connections. Now its too late – so, some of us have deliberately removed such contacts from our networks and others have left them like old pair of sneakers – neither useful nor do we have the heart to part with them. These are Zombie relationships – you cannot get rid of them and you cannot ignore them either.

- One of those Zombies for my contacts!

This blog is inspired by two new startups I recently ran into – Mingle (http://www.mingle.com) and Pearescope (http://www.Pearescope.com). Founders in both the startsup are solving a very important aspect of social networking & relationships. Certainly check them out.

Tags: Facebook, Incentive, Linkedin, Online Communities, Social network, User
Posted in Anthropology, anti-social, Facebook, Innovation, Linkedin, Network, social networks, sociology | 4 Comments »

I want “Google Circles Meets Twitter Meets Hootsuite” product – is there one?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

We all live different lives in the eyes of the people around us ….putting up different personas and vibes based on the company we keep at any given time. This is not only true in our real world interactions but also in our virtual worlds. For example, we are lot more laid back in our interactions on Facebook versus on Linkedin. We try to keep those personas to their respective companies/groups – to have some kind of semblance to the relationships we keep and maintain. For example my care and affection toward my family is different from friends which is different for colleagues. We verbalize certain emotions and reactions based on the person and group we are interacting with – and this is same regardless of the medium – virtual or real! So, in real world, we are able to do this judo of keeping our relationship based groups superbly (except for George Costanza in Seinfeld – <a href=”http://youtu.be/uPG3YMcSvzo” title=” -World’s Collide ….” target=”_blank”></a>). We are also to expose those relevant personas to the right set of people. We have been doing this for hundreds and thousands of years.

Thanks to hugely popular micro blogging (Twitter and Tumblr to some extent), each of us have voices to share with the world but how can multiple personas survive in such a ecosystem without an ability to limit our messages based on the groups those voices should reach. For example, I blog about technology, innovation but also care about Cricket, rampant Indian Corruption, macroeconomic conditions, Rugby and on and on. Twitter or Tumblr doesn’t give me an option to limit my commentary to the right groups and people.

Here is the challenge – When you say the same thing to all the people, the value of what you say is diluted based on what you say. Not only that, it impacts the perception and ultimately your relationships (professional, personal & casual).

Google Circles is an amazing way to create the groups based on the personas and your personal criteria for your contacts.

Most of the Social Network Applications such as Hootsuit and the like allow us to “post” to multiple social networks but don’t give you the ability to “limit” your message to certain groups within your social networks.

Most of the specialist social networks such as #Hashable and #StockTwits offer us the ability to “post” just to those communities without posting to Twitter or other networks. This is very good but those comments and conversations are limited in those communities and don’t reach others who are in my network who also care about that space.

I am yet to see a product that marries Google Circles with Microblogging with Hootsuite.

Google Circles + Twitter+ Hootsuite

Is there one out there yet?

@Vsistla

Tags: Facebook, George Costanza, Google, Hashable, Linkedin, Microblogging, Seinfeld, Social network, StockTwits, Twitter
Posted in Facebook, Google Circles, Hashable, Innovation, Microblogging, Personas, social networks, StockTwits, Tribes, Tweet, Tweeter, Twitter, virtual world | 1 Comment »

Social TV – What works and what doesn’t work!

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Every time we stumble upon a new concept, we extrapolate its use cases across everything we can imagine only to realize that it doesn’t work in every instance! While some other times, we bring those use cases to market much sooner than the market is ready for them. Whether it is the most advanced hard disk drive – Kitty Hawk- from HP in early 1990s, or video streaming in the mid 1990s or online adv supported dot.com ventures in late 1990s, we have left a trail of such untimely ventures in the past.

Welcome to Social TV!Social TV is in its infancy and its good to understand the rules of Social TV based on current market conditions, limitations and end user’s expectations. These rules might not be relevant once the market matures with a different ecosystem than the early days of Social TV.

I define Social TV is an interactive television viewing experience with one or more individuals who are not co-located.

These groups of viewers can not only interact with each other via Television but also with any other devices. In case of certain genre shows such as reality TV or live competition, active social TV viewers can easily influence others in their voting/sentiment.

TV watching has been a fairly lonely experience until now. With connected TVs hitting over 40 million sales by the end of 2011, it doesn’t have to be a only experience. That was also one of the reasons why more youth are spending majority of their time Online rather than watching TV – despite good quality and compelling content.

: When you are in the theater

Social TV is akin to going to movies with a bunch of your friends without Shhing …..and turning off your cell phones while watching.

At least a “pinch hit” substitute for going to movies.

That said, these are the basic rules of Social TV.

Social TV is not for everyone – Social TV is a very interactive and passive experience unlike traditional TV viewing. Most of us are accustomed to this passive experience and might not take to Social TV experience as some of the younger generations might. So, there will be some significant parity between how each generation approaches Social TV. Industry should be mindful of such generational parities in building their Social TV platforms.

Social TV is not for every type of content/show/movie – Just the way not all types of content evokes similar/same reaction and engagement, Social TV is not for every time of content. Social TV is ideal for content that is inherently debatable, passionate with high emotions and opinionated.

Social TV is most compelling when it gives a strong enough reason for the audience to change their viewing patterns and behavior! – Social TV is not just about chatting and interacting with other viewers. Social TV should be able to change the user behavior – at its fundamental level. For example- People who are fans of a show who watch the show in “time shift mode” should find compelling reasons to watch the show “live” along with thousands and millions of other fans. That would dictate the success of Social TV.

Social TV with well-thought through privacy options is very critical. Privacy will be one of the cornerstones of Social TV. Your entertainment viewing options would have profound impact on who wants to be your friend and how close they want to maintain their friends with you. Social TV adds another source of information – about you – to your friends. Your reputation, persona, personality, priorities, values and principles get re-evaluated in the eyes of the world. So, privacy becomes that much more important.

Social TV should be non intrusive – should not spoil the experience of watching the show or movie. Done right, Social TV should not negatively impact the viewing experience. If anything, it should enhance it.

Social TV gets interesting when there are two or more sides/teams/parties – aka – Sports is the most apt genre for Social TV. Yes – Social TV thrives when there are sides, teams, emotions and passions. Sports content is most suitable for Social TV interactions.

Social TV is not just socializing while watching TV ….its also bringing TV to social networks and online communities. Social TV brings conversations from online/web to your living room. Your Online communities enter your living room.

Conversation is the engine between social TV – content is just a topic at hand! That’s correct – Social TV enables the conversations, heated and passionate debates in real time instead of waiting until the Water Cooler moment the next day morning.

: Image by dennis -Nothing to talk at Water Coolers – via Flickr

Social TV thrives on the principle that we often look to others when we make media consumption decisions. We are less hardwired about these decisions than life changing/serious decisions

We are heavily influenced by the people in our physical space than remote. So, your social interactions vary based on who and how many are around you while watching TV. You might interact lot more with your remote buddies when you are watching TV alone versus with someone in the room. As George Custanza from Seinfeld would say, the “World’s Could Collide” that might lead to interesting scenarios - based on type of conversations and your company in the living room.

People care deeply about how they look to others! Social TV is no different – if users don’t have appropriate tools to control how they are perceived by others, Social TV will die. Humans self-censor and we cannot live without it ….

Social TV is most suited for Sporting Events, Live Events and Reality Television – Based on above rules and scenarios, I feel Social TV is most suited for Sporting, Live and Reality TV Content - in that order.

Social TV Platform Ready for Operator Trials (prweb.com)
ABC Introduces Social TV iPad App for “My Generation” (debaird.net)

Tags: Arts, Conversations, Interactive, Interactive television, Privacy, Reality Television, Seinfeld, Social network, Social TV, Sports Content, Streaming media, Television
Posted in Apple TV, Apps, Attention, Broadcasters, Customers, Facebook, Home, Influencer, Information Age, Innovation, Internet, iTV, Over the top, Privacy, Real Time, Reputation, Social Capital, Social Grooming, social networks, Social TV, sociology, Twitter, virtual world | 1 Comment »

Posts Tagged ‘Social network’

- All Opinions are my own and not of my employer.

@VSistla

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