Hey LinkedIn….here is my wish list. Will you be my Santa this year?

LinkedIn has a come a long way from the time it started.                                                                

Not even a single day passes without me visiting it or accessing myriads of resources and tools available on it. Very soon, a day will come when you Google for every other information but LinkedIn for information related to individuals and possibly companies and jobs.

Over the periods of my prolific usage, I did realize a need for some additional services and utilities that will make the experience even more holistic and pleasurable.

Here is a compilation of my asks.

1. Full archival of contact’s information – I have ingrained a practice wherein I use LinkedIn to obtain good information about an individual prior to the meeting.

Post the meeting, I send a Thank you note and a LinkedIn invite. While acceptance of this invite helps me archive all information related to the person I met, it doesn’t help me archive the most important information pertaining to the person’s coordinates – both telephone number and email address. As a result, I end up maintaining a separate contact information, that can be easily consolidated in LinkedIn through an ‘on demand’ phone / address book.

LinkedIn can not only facilitate this, but could also potentially convert it into a revenue stream where in any information fetched beyond a predefined number of times can be charged, on per transaction basis.

2. Profile Flexibility – The new profile formats that were introduced several months ago, I actually lost the count, are very good.

Still they don’t provide adequate flexibility. For instance, it is quite common and expected for executives to be involved with several initiatives outside the sphere of work. They could be professional or personal causes; executives would like to show them on their respective profiles.

While LinkedIn facilitates this, it doesn’t allow the users to change the order in which they are listed. As a result, whenever I list a new association or company, that is in addition to my current employer, my network gets an impression that I switched jobs – thanks to the ‘Notify your network’ functionality.

Lo and behold, I end up responding to mails and queries basically to clarify that I have not switched jobs and that new addition on the profile is over and above the existing job. May be LinkedIn should also come up with different profile formats for different roles and seniority. Basically, one size doesn’t not fit all.

3. Contextual Connections – The categories used to connect with new people haven’t changed much on LinkedIn, while it introduced several new avenues to network and connect with people.

For instance, I have obtained good number of comments and likes on my past posts. When, I would like to go and connect with the fraternity, that is outside my network, but responding to my posts, LinkedIn pops up the same old categories – Colleague, Classmate, We’ve done business together, Friend, Other and I don’t know XYZ.

Why should I belong to one of these categories to connect with my readers? They have liked and responded to my posts and connect has already been established. Isn't this a good enough reason to stay connected on LinkedIn?

4. Uniform User Experience – LinkedIn experience is not uniform when accessed via a computer, compared to a tablet or a mobile phone. For example the ‘number of views on your update’ tab is not accessible via a smart phone or a tablet easily like it is on the ‘Home’ page when accessed through a computer. It will really help if a harmonized experience is provided, regardless of the device used to access the content.

5. Reporting Objectionable Content – The amount of content on LinkedIn is increasing rapidly. Also, the distinction between personal content and professional content is waning very fast.

LinkedIn users seem to leverage it very often to share personal updates that are usually reserved for social networking sites. While this is a personal choice, what is more alarming is the content on religion disparaging other religions, surfacing on LinkedIn. I am a firm believer that all humans are born equal and all religions are equal too.

No religion encourages disparaging other religion. Hence, LinkedIn should provide an option where in readers can report such objectionable content and the same can be removed expeditiously.

6. Cherishing the tenure and Payback – The one feature that I like on credit cards is the one that says, ‘member since’. Though, I am yet to experience differentiated services based on the tenure of my association, but it feels good to know that the association has been long.

Similarly, LinkedIn could consider coming up with various profile badges based on tenure. These profile badges can empower the owners / users to unlock and access certain tools, features which today are only restricted to Premium members. Hey, who doesn’t like Payback!

If you too have a wish list,  join me in listing it here and asking LinkedIn to be our Santa this year!!

Cheers

Rajesh Dhuddu