2012 Year in Review from Talascend IT

Happy New Year!

In this New Year, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who read and engaged with Talascend IT and me personally in 2012; be it on the blog, LinkedIn and other social media, via email, and more. I’d also like to thank those of you who have felt compelled to share the stories with others.

The beginning of the year is customarily a time for celebration of what the future holds. It’s also a time for reflection on the past year.  Keeping that in mind, I wanted to share the Top 10 posts of 2012 from Talascend IT (just in case you missed one): 

 

10.   Real relationships, not online connections, build true professional networks

Nov 27, 2012 – LinkedIn is a great networking tool. There is a difference between the number of connections you have and the number real relationships you have online. I explore the idea further in this post, which climbed quickly into the top ten.

9.      Friday Bonus Blog: Forward this blog to 10 of your friends and Microsoft will pay you 1 million dollars (and other respect destroying communications)

May 18, 2012 – Even though spawned out of the spirit of competition between a colleague and myself; the message in this post regarding email ‘dos and don’ts’ was apparently pretty important to our readers.

   

8.      The Myth About Contingent Employee Engagement

Dec 10, 2012 – Contingent workers often get a bad rap. Two conflicting studies on the subject really got me thinking about whether or not there are that many differences between contingent workers and full time employees. Apparently I am not alone, as this story ended up being one of the top posts of 2012 in only three weeks.

7.      Back it up. Back it up. The Cloud isn't as safe as 'they' say it is.

Sep 4, 2012 – I think if I wrote ‘back it up’ one more time in this post, the ‘back it up police’ would have come to arrest me. An interesting look into a subject that affects anyone with anything stored online; from pictures saved to social media to data saved on the cloud.

6.      Words Matter: The importance of semantics in business.

Nov 5, 2012 – Simple phrases can make or break a conversation. They can mean the difference between getting buy in from others and ‘losing them’ in a business setting. This post combines some of the most powerful phrases my peers and I came up with in a recent online discussion.

5.      Some Thoughts Are Better Left Untweeted: Is Social Media Eroding Self-Control?

Mar 12, 2012 – The title says it all. Do you do and say things online you wouldn’t in person? Is the increasingly common ‘take it or leave it’ attitude towards others a result of social media use? The answers to these question and more garnered this post a seat in the Top Five of 2012.

4.      Three ways to get what you really want from an interviewee.

May 14, 2012 – An article from Forbes had a very profound message about how to get the most out of candidates while interviewing. I expanded on the idea more and received a lot of great feedback as a result.  

3.      I'm sorry I missed that: Is technology affecting the way we communicate?

Oct 22, 2012 – A post I saw on LinkedIn regarding etiquette in interpersonal and professional situations really struck a chord with me. This slap on the wrist to myself is an eye-opening look into the dangers of being distracted by instant communication that today’s technology provides us; and what it can ‘say’ to others while you’re talking with them.

2.      Another Dagger in the Heart of Job Boards?: BranchOut announces $25-million in additional backing for combat with LinkedIn

Apr 23, 2012 – The topic surrounding the decline of job boards definitely sparked the most interest and comments from our readers. Some praised the data and relevancy of major job boards. Some feel I am right in my opinion that they will become less relevant and viable as we move into the future. This blog was only a few readers away from being #1 in our countdown.

       

1.      The ’Beginning of The End for Job Boards’ Kicks into High Gear…Monster Announces It’s 'For Sale.'

Mar 26, 2012 – This follow up to an earlier prediction regarding job boards’ relevancy in this day and age of social networking caused a lot of discussion; both online and offline. It was the hottest topic in 2012.

Thank you again for all of your kind words, comments, and interesting points of view regarding the posts in 2012.  Look for more articles, thoughts, and bold predictions in 2013, and all of us at Talascend IT will look forward to hearing from you.

Happy New Year! –

JK

Josh Kaplan writes on various subjects including management, information technology breakthroughs, healthcare IT recruitment and innovations, big data, IT staffing and recruitment, and technical news and trends.

Is LinkedIn Testing Shark Filled Waters with its New Top Influencers Updates?

Is LinkedIn jumping the shark with a new influencers feed?

In what may end up being the jumping of the shark for LinkedIn they, to me at least, have succumbed to social peer pressure.

Up until now the news feed features and highlights that appeal directly to you we're in your feed.  It included only influencers and top discussions from groups you are a member of and news feeds from your network.

I may be ahead of the game and yes, it seems all social networks have a life-cycle. I want to mark today as the day that I said this is the LinkedIn 'jumping the shark moment.' It seems the professional network has buckled to the pressures of other social media and taken steps to remain relevant with users. 

Why do I say this?

LinkedIn, after it dissolved an agreement with Twitter for an instantaneous update feed has now, in what I believe is a struggle to remain relevant, has announced that it has engaged with the professional world's top influencers to post content, whether wanted or not, generated by the business world's top influencers.

According to another blog and as evidenced by this morning's activity, Twitter has engaged the likes of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Chopra and Robbins to circulate content on its network, and on a regular basis.  

What I don't want in the least is logging into LinkedIn to read Obama or Romney’s political agenda, Deepak Chopra’s peaceful meditation recommendations, or Tony Robbins “inspiration”.

Even though I have a choice whether or not I want to follow this stream of what I consider to be irrelevant fodder on the network, if one of my connections chooses to follow and post updates from these 'influencers' I am faced to deal with countless stories and 'news' feed in which I am not interested.

I purposely choose who Is in my network and from who I want to see updates. Why would you force upon me the people who LinkedIn thinks are important? 

When I log in to Facebook I don’t get political agenda thrown upon me from anyone other than my friends who choose to promote their own beliefs, and If I don’t like them I can argue, or un-friend them. 

Even if they don’t thrust this upon me and make me choose to follow it, it still opens the network up to people who likely aren’t the real people posting information that will be re-tweeted, re-posted on Facebook, and put into news feeds. 

I don’t believe that the likes of Obama and Romney (or Chopra or Robins for that matter) will really sit down and create LinkedIn updates. Sorry, but I’d like to think they have better things to do with their time.  So whatever publicist is posting their messages (that will undoubtedly appear all over the social networks including LinkedIn of which I am a part), I am almost certain I will not be getting information from this “Trusted Elite Influencer.”

LinkedIn...I hate to say it because I do find the professional networking you provide of value not only to my business and colleagues within my business but, I am sorry;  this looks like the beginning of the end to me.

I woke up to the same story re-posted several times on my timeline saying it was a trending story. I may have missed a strategic move by a former colleague or a current colleague as a result. I may use LinkedIn differently than the average user; who is mostly interested in leveraging contacts to gain better employment opportunities; but I feel the new changes have reduced this network to a glorified social medium that is teetering on the edge of becoming just 'another social media outlet.'

Don't get me wrong, LinkedIn has its place. I've said before that I think it will render job aggregation boards obsolete, but I really think LinkedIn could do a lot more to become more than a recruitment platform. Maybe that’s what they are going for with the trusted elite news feeds / following, but I think they missed the target.

They need to engage professionals: the exact people using LinkedIn.   We need to know what professionals are seeing in their industry; not just a single job they need help with. Maybe we as a professional group are transactional and single job focused, but doesn’t the big picture have relevancy?

What do you think? Has LinkedIn devalued itself to pander to the likes of Facebook and Twitter to remain relevant, or do you think the mere nature of the network as a professional network is enough to sustain its relevance, no matter what they do?

Josh Kaplan writes on various subjects including information technology breakthroughs, big data, IT staffing and recruitment, healthcare IT recruitment, and technical industry news and trends.