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Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
November 2014
Dammit, LinkedIn!
12 min reading time

I’m trying to work with you, LinkedIn, really, I am.

I may lead the Medical Devices Group which, as of this writing has 250,000+ members, but I play by your rules. Fair enough; it’s your platform.

Through your lack of response, you’ve subtly and repeatedly informed me you don’t value my input.

But, please. When you send an email like the one above to the 150,000+ recipients of the daily digest with the headline “TO MIGRATE TO CANADA FOR WORK,” from dubious member “atsi offpage” … how am I supposed to retain and educate members?

You say “TO MIGRATE TO CANADA FOR WORK” is a “Trending Discussion.”

It’s not. It’s not even a Discussion.

No, your algorithm might have better selected one of the two discussions I published among 100 submissions yesterday. I provide this service for the eyes and minds of the busy medical device thought leaders I hope to engage.

You might even make the “Manager’s Choice” designation meaningful again, as I fruitlessly recommended months ago.

Your selection, “TO MIGRATE TO CANADA FOR WORK,” may just as well have said …

“TO UNSUBSCRIBE CLICK HERE.”
Please. Work with me here.

Do I have a vested interest in the group’s success? Yes.

But you – and your shareholders – have a bigger one: Our premium memberships, our engagement, and our willingness to click on your advertisers’ links.

Listening to customers = good.

Please. Listen to us, your customers.

+++

DOUBLE DAMMIT ADDENDUM.
A week later LinkedIn sent busy group members this spam on my behalf.

If you’ve ever been frustrated by LinkedIn’s product and “customer service,” please like and share this post, and leave a comment.

It’s a long shot but maybe with enough attention, LinkedIn may fix the issue?

About the Author: Joe Hage leads the Medical Devices Group here on LinkedIn and his 10x Medical Device Conference unites Group members in an intimate and educational forum each year. He specializes in marketing communications and strategy, lead generation, and website development for medical device and related companies.

And he is frustrated by LinkedIn’s unwillingness to engage its heaviest users.


Andy Hewitt
Retired Hands-on Software Manager
I agree – LinkedIn’s brand has been cheapened. Please listen to your members and premium service members. Don’t let LinkedIn continue to deteriorate, and become another Facebook. Maintain professionalism.

Joseph Zagrobelny
Building the iSAIL Generation: Fast & Deep AI (TM) Optimizing People Assets – FInance-Health-Education
The bottom line is that IT companies don’t know Relationships.This gets revealed/amplified in the disconnect between Brand Strategy – what LinkedIn wants to be/thinks they are, and Brand Identity – what the audience says/let’s the Brand become. I don’t think that LinkedIn was ever good with groups OR with connecting people and Content. How LinkedIn works best is (1) the great job that many people do with describing their (mostly) professional selves; (2) a personal Network that shares content. And the only way that translates into revenue/keeps LinkedIn alive is advertising (that no one watches), job posting and marketing – which is what LinkedIn says their Brand is. So don’t look for the business of brand Relationships to happen anytime soon on LinkedIn, facebook, twitter, etc. – it’s just not a part of an IT company’s DNA.

Robyn Barnes
Business & Real Estate Writer, Regulated Industry Business Development, GxP Lifeline Media Professional
I’ve seen this happen in other LinkedIn groups I belong to. It really cheapens LinkedIn’s brand.

David Lim, Ph.D. RAC, CQA
FDA Consultant Speaker | Drugs, Biologics, Medical Devices & IVDs, Combination Products, 483s, & FDA Inspection
You’ve raised issues. Then time to move on!

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Another update: The delightful conversation I had with a real, live LinkedIn employee went nowhere. He’s responded to my emails with kind words and no actions. Until there’s a viable LinkedIn competitor (ever?), this is what we’ve got, Folks.

Joseph Fodera
President and CEO, Fodera and Associates, LLC. and Town of Halfmoon, New York Town Justice
Great post Joe. Wish I had seen it sooner, I was touring Canada in search of a job. Keep up the great work and I hope that someday LinkedIn will crown you the King!

Kelly J. Waffle
Head of Digital Strategy at Hinge Marketing | Named as a Top 50 Global Martech Influencer by Onalytica
Thanks for posting Joe Hage. Glad to hear that LinkedIn responded to you.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
UPDATE: This post led to a meaningful 30-minute conversation with an influential LinkedIn employee today. It created a lot of goodwill with me and, for the first time in a long time, I have a glimmer of hope my feedback will be heard.

Leonard Eisner
Medical Device Consultant, IEC 60601-1, Regulatory, Product Safety, Compliance, Quality Systems, & Internal Audits
Thank you Joe for speaking Up. I use LinkedIn a lot but this has me frustrated too. I can’t afford the time even glancing at spam and when a member for about 50 groups that is a lot of spam if it happens to even a few groups a day. Which i am pretty sure it does. Please help Joe out and fix the issue so Joe the manager of the group has the proper controls. I am also a group manager and I would like the same support too.

Christina Pucci
Scientist
Bravo!

Jill C. Schmidt
Advancing Cutting-Edge Medical Solutions
I completely agree, Joe. To be succinct, LinkedIn’s complete lack of customer focus is unprofessional & insulting. It’s too bad that, for the most part, they monopolize the tool world for professional networking & know their platform is the only game in town. Thanks for your voice in challenging “the system”.

John Pobursky RN, BSN, CURN
Pelvic Medicine Consultants
This is a pretty relevant post that should appear on the list of discussions when you arrive at the Medical Devices Group homepage, but I just clicked on it and this new discussion is absent on your group page. Especially annoying are all the worthless come-on’s to part you with your money like that ‘secret sentence’ bit of crap that pollutes some group pages… Still, LinkedIn has been a pretty decent tool and resource despite its flaws – please carry on your good work, Joe!

Dave Delaney β˜•
Communication Connoisseur. Founder, Author, Keynote Speaker on Communication, Networking, and Digital Marketing.
I am terribly disappointed to see LinkedIn sinking to this level. I understand placing sponsored content within Groups to increase revenue on LinkedIn’s side. That’s fair considering Groups is a free feature all users can use regardless of their membership (paid or not).

However, this is unacceptable. It’s also a BIG reason why I don’t rely on social networks as much as I did at one time. Don’t misunderstand, I love SNSs and connecting with friends on them, but I’ve learned not to entirely trust them.

Facebook is a great example of a social network that turned around and became a pay-to-play medium for brands. Let’s face it, if you want your content seen on your page you now have to pay for it.

Instead, I rely on email as the key thing. Yes, I run the New Business Networking Group on Facebook, but – an email is needed (and now a small payment too) to join the group. The key reason (beyond the payment) is that I have access to contact everyone in the group should I need to. Facebook could go down, my account could be compromised, or they could start charging $1,000/month to run a group – who knows!

Back in 2007 (or was it 2008?), I was locked out of Twitter for a weekend. My account had been suspended “due to suspicious activity”. It was a mistake that Twitter never apologized for. It was also a wake up call. How could I contact and keep in touch with my Twitter friends without access? Heck, I didn’t even know everyone’s real names, let alone their contact information.

I love LinkedIn for a lot of reasons, especially that we can still export all of our connections (names, titles, businesses, emails and all). We should all be doing this monthly (or weekly) to back it up – just in case.

I recommend still using social networks to network with your peers and friends, but always be sure you have their personal information, or you may be disconnected in a heartbeat when the social network starts to spam it’s users and the people decided they’ve had enough.

End rant. πŸ™‚

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
So completely agree, Dave Delaney, and thanks for the generous commentary. As it happens, I *inherited* the Medical Devices Group when my predecessor died.

Now with 260,000+ members worldwide, it’s the world’s largest medical device community – a hard thing to walk away from. And even more difficult to replicate outside LinkedIn – believe me, I’ve considered it – but joining a group is a low-commitment decision; it’s just clicking an extra button.

The work comes after they join by consistently delivering value that justifies their return.

My relationship with LinkedIn: Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

Steve Terrell, EdD
Expert in Learning Mindset | Leadership & Organization Development | Facilitator | Author
Joe Hage, not listening to your customers or key stakeholders is a leading indicator of impending organizational failure at a larger scale. Our choices are limited: do nothing, and let the algorithms win; or speak up, and try to catalyze change from within; or leave the system. I haven’t experienced the frustration that you have experienced, so thank you for speaking up!

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Thanks, Steve. I wonder if the fantastic first-mover advantage they enjoy will be enough. As a betting man, I’m inclined to think so for the foreseeable future.

Steve Terrell, EdD
Expert in Learning Mindset | Leadership & Organization Development | Facilitator | Author
Can you hear me now? Time to make LinkedIn Groups work for their members and moderators!

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Regrettably, no, Steve. They can’t hear you.

Paul Thoresen, M.A.
Industrial Organizational Psychology Practitioner | Organization Development |
time to recruit a team of moderator, then review every single submission. Delete everything that is not up to Parr before it hits the discussion area.

Steve Wallace
Member and owner at LI Groups Management Forum
Ever since LinkedIn started featuring deleted posts in the daily Digest, I’ve posted trouble tickets to the Excuse Center. I explained that conscientious group managers volunteer significant time to keeping the good groups spam-free. It is therefore especially irritating when LinkedIn publishes the deleted spam in the Digest.

Of course, LI will not divulge their thoughts nor share details on the selection algorithm, so I now try to quickly post the following message when I delete a post that has violated the group rules:

Heading: “LinkedIn is having issues with deleted posts (temporary topic)”

“In the last few months, even though a post has been deleted for being spam, off-topic, or in violation of the group’s rules, LinkedIn has nevertheless selected the deleted post to lead the e-mailed daily Digest. LinkedIn has been notified but, so far, no progress on a fix.

“A post was removed from here a little while ago, so this message is being temporarily placed in case another, valid post does not arrive in time. We would rather that the Digest grab this post than retain and publicize the deleted post. Thanks.”

Unfortunately, it does not always work – sometimes LI publishes a piece of spam that had been deleted 23 hours before the Digest. But it does work sometimes and it helps to educate the membership on why the featured Digest post is not available.

Spammers have gotten wise and include their URL in the heading so that they still accomplish their purpose, even when a post has been deleted in the group.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Which is why I moderate 100 percent of the content that goes into the Medical Devices Group, no exceptions now, not even jobs and promotions.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Paul Fussell,

They say hope isn’t much of a strategy. LinkedIn published jobs to the worldwide group twice more since I originally penned this article.

Another headline was “New content on Medical Devices Group” which only featured TWELVE (12) job opportunities from “Kelli Johnson.”

Paul Fussell
Nationaly Recognized Ranking Consultant, Marketing Expert, Social Media and Linkedin Authority specialist
I feel your pain man! Be persistent, hang in there, maybe they will get the message.

Nicole Reif
Senior Financial Services Representative
Interesting. Thank you for sharing.

C. Yusuf Mumtaz
Medical Device Sales Executive
Watch out, LinkedIn; Facebook is developing a separate social network for professionals.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
But LinkedIn has such a dramatic first-mover advantage. Having said that, so did Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.

Erik Van Erne
Managing Director at Wolfram Publications
Thanks for sharing.

Eric Way
IT Specialist at State of Iowa
Wow, I’m an IT Specialist and this is eerily similar to my last position. I made the mistake of quitting before getting another job(or fired). I would at least have something lined up. It takes about 4 to 8 weeks to get to another position otherwise(applying, interviewing, background check, etc.) and your savings will get eaten up a lot faster than you think!

Robert Trinka, MBA
Senior Management: Sales | Marketing | Business Development
Great comment, Joe. Thanks.

Travis Fisher
I solve real world problems.
I bet a lot of people who are Open to invitations to link are also prone to getting tons of spam.

Jim Madaffer
President & CEO at Madaffer Enterprises, Inc.
Joe, if LinkedIn won’t listen, you should invite your members to join your own discussion website and get Medical Device insight outside of LinkedIn.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Easier said, my friend. The idea of recreating a quarter-million member group is too exhausting to even consider. No, I’m in their quicksand.

Lance Miller
Cat Herder at The Cetan Group
To me, a much bigger issue is the puppet account issue. As far as I can tell, little is done to combat this. I guess one day a law suit will garner some attention…

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Yes, I’ve seen a marked spike in messages from impossibly beautiful women selling B2B lead generation services.

Christopher Burgess
Executive Director at Woodinville Chamber of Commerce by day Security/Privacy/Intel/National Security writer by night
Alas – the Spam Bots have hit every one of the communities in which I participate – maddening as it creates such clutter that I do find my self clicking through to read less often than previously and relying on my search results to find items of interest — Migrating to Canada — not so much as you know Joe our little town is too comfortable – enjoy the day (and I am sure Linked-In is listening)

Mark A. Johnson
Director of Sourcing, Supplier Management & E-Procurement Strategy at RELX Group
If LinkedIn doesn’t address these issues, professionals will find another platform for their groups. And there are lots of hungry companies out there who would be more than happy to fill the gap. LinkedIn is going the way of MySpace and Facebook; a lot of fluff with very little substance.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
I’m not sure I agree, Mark. They have such a commanding lead; I don’t even know who is in second place these days.

Iris Fisher
Recruiting Professional (Health Care / Medical Devices) President at HealthMed Recruiting
I have downgraded to a regular account because several groups will not let me post legitimate jobs that are appropriate for their group members, yet they allow lots of spam. Writing to the group managers is a joke, they do not reply and linked in customer service treats me like it is my fault.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Writing to *some* group managers may be a joke; I respond to every one. It depends on the intent and motives of the group manager, I suspect.

David Lachmann
Experienced Cross-Technology Manufacturing Specialist
Good input Joe. Sure hope someone’s listening…

Stephen Glassic
Available: Biomedical Equipment Technician, Field Service Engineer, Electronic/Electromechanical Technician
Joe, That looks like one of those schemes to trap desperate people into slave work or prostitution.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
I trust you’re interested in neither. Sorry if you were among the spammed today, Stephen.

James Gilliland
30 years in medical industry expert in Device Sales and operations
This why I don’t have a premium membership.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
I’m afraid that won’t exempt you from nonsense correspondences generated from the LinkedIn algorithm.

Steve Fawthrop
New Client Sales Development l Sales Leadership
Joe, I warned these guys before they do not want to get on your bad side. Not sure why they are not listening.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Funny, Steve. Why would they care if they get on my bad side? I’m only one member. Indeed, each of LinkedIn’s 259,000,000 users are only one member. They can afford to disenfranchise a few million of us, right?

Laura Dodson
Recycled Book Journals
Joe, we are all migrating to Canada. I’m sorry this is how you found out about it. #addsJoetoMailingList

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
I hope your frustration with LinkedIn did not contribute to this development.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs
And then there are the long posts.

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
I’m not following you, Arlen. What do you mean, please?

Haasan Zaidi
Black Hat at THE LUXE STORY [a.k.a Managing Director]
Joe you are so right! this is an unfortunate but an increasing trend… spamming is on a rise and Linkedin, which has been strictly professional networking, is suddenly changing into a marketing, sorry read it as spammers, paradise…. some weird newbie social media marketing gurus have found a new social media site… Gosh, someone needs to tell them the difference between FB and Linkedin.. Someday, LInkedin will wake up.. someday!

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Not holding breath on this either.

Nicholas Roberts
Head Of Marketing at Global App Testing
I agree Joe on this and have seen the amount of group spam increase significantly. I find it horrendous those emails come out such as “Legit Online Jobs,get paid real cash to post ads from home,Make Over $9,000/MONTH !” on the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology group which I am a member of and clearly is NOT a trending topic. Let me know if they ever get back with you!

Joe Hage
πŸ”₯ Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net πŸ”₯
Not holding breath.

Stephen Glassic
Available: Biomedical Equipment Technician, Field Service Engineer, Electronic/Electromechanical Technician
Some groups are worse than others. Joe does a great job at mitigating those kinds of posts, promotions etc. Some other groups, not so. One group that I am in allows anyone to join instantly and immediately publish a post. Joe does not allow that.

On the group I mentioned above, there have been an average of three posts per day similar to the ones you mentioned Nicholas. It looks like it is someone being paid to post those bogus get rich quick schemes. They are probably all the same person creating fake LinkedIn profiles usually with a photo of attractive woman. I have been flagging them as inappropriate daily. Don’t click on the links in those posts. They might be malicious. I clicked on one of them and it locked up my browser. I had to close and restart it.

Marked as spam
Posted by Joe Hage
Asked on November 12, 2014 9:00 am
63 views
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