The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Even though its only major achievement has been ensuring I have an endless stream of emails from people wanting a job, I think it’s great.

OK, so I know there are many people who say it’s been extremely beneficial for them and/or their business … plus I know it received a ridiculous [and I mean ridiculous] high stock market evaluation … but in my personal experience, I’ve not had a huge amounts of benefits and yet I like it.

Or should I say I did.

You see earlier today I saw a person on there that I really wanted to connect with.

I didn’t know him. None of the people I know, know him and none of the people I know, know people who know him.

Now normally that doesn’t matter because you just choose the “FRIEND” option on the invite, and your request can zoom off without any issue.

Except they’ve changed that option.

Now you have to enter their email address to prove you’re their friend.

In some respects, I agree and understand that – however they should have made that the rule from the start but because they didn’t, it means my expectations are – in the true sense of networking – that I can connect with whoever I choose and then it’s down to them whether they want to respond.

So with my usual avenue thwarted, I looked for another option.

To see it clearer, click here

There it is … right at the bottom … the “I don’t know them” option.

Perfect and fair enough.

So after writing my introduction to this person I wanted to connect with, I clicked on that option only to get this …

To see it clearer, click here

“INVITATIONS SHOULD ONLY BE SENT TO PEOPLE YOU KNOW PERSONALLY???

What the fuck?

LinkedIn is a networking site … the whole fucking point is that you can connect to people you don’t know personally. If I did know them, don’t you think I’d either have them as a facebook friend or know their fucking email address in the first place.

What a pile of absolute shit.

Seriously, LinkedIn have turned me from a passive fan into an active critic all because of a feature that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Some adfolk say it’s about the content.
Others claim it’s about giving a sense of belonging.
Then there’s the people who believe it’s about the level of engagement.
And then there’s the group who proclaim it’s all about interactivity.

Whether you accept those views or not, they tend to be the common themes being banged on about by the ad industry right now.

When you talk to the social media hub brand “owners”, you get a different story.

The people at Wikipedia say it’s about letting people “know everything”.
The folks at Google talk about, “giving access to everything”.
Facebook’s mob love to say it’s about “connecting to everyone”.

Well that’s all well and good but while they’re all busy desperately coming up with ways to attract even more people to their destinations – from building apps to browsers to new tech altogether – it’s worth remembering that their biggest threat to their business is not the folk in Silicon Valley, but the people who power Silicon Valley and the rest of the World put together … the electricity companies.

So if I was Google and I wanted to ensure I always had a huge amount of cash coming through my doors, I wouldn’t purely rely on the ad revenues I get from my search products or the fees I get from the Android devices being sold, I’d go out and buy a power company because even if overnight people dropped me for Microsoft or Apple or Facebook or some company that’s not started yet but will become the talk of the town within 3 month … I’d still have shitloads of cash pouring in to my business and I’d be able to do it without wasting another cent on mistakes like Google Wave, Buzz or Answers.

The industry might love to talk about how many people want an iPhone 5 or visit Facebook, but the real power behind social media are the companies who power the whole thing … so don’t fall into the trap of only following the category, look a bit deeper and a bit broader and you might find out that the people your brand really needs to keep an eye on are the people who have nothing to do with your category at all.

One, fear nothing. Two, be optimistic. Take the long view – when you do that, you can cope with anything.”

DENG XIAOPING, 1964.

You might not know who Deng Xiaoping is, but if you were to look at his history, you’d find he was probably one of the great capitalist – not to mention political – visionaries and strategists of our time.

OF. OUR. TIME.

People talk about Warren Buffett, but Deng Xiaoping was on a whole other level.

In essence, this is the man who created the masterplan and blueprint to make China one of – if not the – richest countries in the World and he did it in a way that still allowed them to maintain [or at least the illusion of it] their communist beliefs and credentials.

OK, so his situation and political influence was different to Buffett’s, but then so were his obstacles to success … which is why I find it so powerful to hear someone talk about the value of taking the long, long view rather than being obsessed with hitting the next quarters targets.

Sure it’s easier when you know you and your cronies are still going to be in power in 100 years time, but when you see look at the mess the World has got itself in with their quest for short-cuts to profit – and the fact they have the shortest memories since the goldfish – maybe it’s time to accept speed of growth can also mean speed of collapse, especially if the people who make all the cash don’t have to be around when everyone else is losing it.

How funny that this ‘get rich’ attitude is so prevalent in the financial industry when in marketing, they adopt an attitude of “don’t fuck things up”, even though their job tenure is a similar 2 or 3 years.

Not as petty as John Dodds, but petty all the same.

And one thing that gets right on my nerves is when I see ads like this one from Lufthansa.

There are so many reasons this ad annoys me …

Putting aside the fact having internet access on a plane basically robs me of the last place I can hide from all the demands and expectations of life and work so I will do all I can to avoid any airline offering that service … Lufthansa have decided to promote this ‘innovation’ with one of the blandest and most contrived pieces of shit since the last tele-movie by Hallmark or a Singapore Airlines ad.

Everything about this ad bothers me.

EVERYTHING.

But the bit that gets my goat slightly more than everything else is the fact the woman is holding her iPhone 4 the wrong way round.

Of course it’s because it she used the front camera, the ‘idea’ in the ad would be lost because all you’d end up seeing is the back of the phone, but as far as I am concerned, that would be a great thing because the whole concept is rubbish, built around the term ‘airmail’ rather than an idea that makes on board wi-fi sound appealing.

Fuck, when you think of all the things they could have done and they decide this is the way to go – something blander than even a beige Volvo – you wonder what the hell the sex life of the Lufthansa board must be like.

OK, maybe that’s just me.

From being able to position themselves as the ‘social network’ airline … through to ‘the plane that lets you be an annoying show-off bastard to your friends’ … to the plane ‘for the paranoid’ … to the airline for ‘the business traveller who wants to be there for his family even when he’s not there for his family’ … to the plane ‘for the efficient from the national airline of the efficient’ … anything would be better than this rubbish, though given the message of the ad and the fact the ‘talent’ can’t even hold an iPhone 4 the right way round, it would appear Lufthansa have identified a core audience of tech imbeciles, probably because they’ll be the only idiots who’ll be happy to pay $10 a minute to send an email of themselves sitting on a fucking plane.

This ad might work for people with all the personality of magnolia wallpaper, but for anyone with half a brain – or even an iPhone 4 – it’s more likely to drive them straight to Aeroflot or worse, United Airlines.