The Demise of Print Media: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Posted on February 27, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Today is the last day for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News. It is a passing of the guard for our state as this form of communication is dying and The Denver Post will be the sole survivor for the Denver metro. In addition to the 200+ newsroom staffers out of a job, the demise of The Rocky Mountain News is real blow for Colorado as one of our oldest businesses with roots back to 1859.

While we will miss our Rocky Mountain News, Denver is a mid-tier large city which challenges the limits of supporting two local papers. However, earlier this week, media mogul Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle  newspaper, the nation’s 12th largest daily and Northern California’s largest daily. Last month it declared that it would close its money-losing Seattle Post-Intelligencer unless a buyer emerged within 60 days. To date, no purchaser has stepped forward in Seattle, just as no buyers have been announced for the Miami Herald, the Austin American-Statesman, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The bankruptcy filing of Philadelphia Media Holdings could deliver the deathblow to the Philadelphia Daily News. Journal Register Co. sought bankruptcy protection last Friday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune sought protection in January and Tribune Co, sought protection in December of 2008. Read about details of the newspaper industry and its troubles in Reflections of a Newsosaur by Alan Mutter.

This year’s annual convention of newspaper editors has been canceled so their publications can save money and focus on surviving the recession. It’s just the second time that American Society of Newspaper Editors hasn’t convened. The last time occurred during the final months of World War II in 1945. The newspaper editors convention was supposed to be held from April 26-29 in Chicago.

The recession is advancing a trend we have seen for several years: the labor costs of running a newspaper are increasing relative to lower readership and ad revenues. Print media in its many forms is threatened as people read their news, for free, on the Internet before it hits the newspapers. I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The benefit is the depth of the articles compared to on-line articles, which I value. For many, newspapers don’t get us the news quickly enough as we have become social media and social network junkies. I keep Twitter open much of the day, which points me to the news as it’s happening through “Twitscoop.”

As a competitive intelligence professional and researcher, I am troubled by the demise of newspapers, not unlike the lower readership of books. We have become a nation with short attention spans, and while “6 or 10 points of how to do something,” might be interesting, it is cursory communication. In-depth news and books is really how you learn, grow, develop leadership and expertise, and we are losing this. We are also losing our connection with journalists, who are experts in their field, unlike bloggers who are often “self appointed” experts.

What do you think about the demise of print media and lower readership of books in favor of electronic news and social media?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, leadership, research, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on The Demise of Print Media: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Trick or Tweet: 13 Ways to Alienate Twitter Followers

Posted on February 26, 2009 by ellendnaylor
This is a follow-up to “Netiquette on LinkedIn.” In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I will illustrate how to be cooperative by sharing examples of bad Twitter communication practices.
Here 13 ways to alienate your Followers on Twitter:
1. Advertise your blog posts and everything about your business with every Tweet. It’s OK to send a person to your blogs as you publish, but it is tacky to repeat and/or re-tweet (repeat your Tweets) about your business continuously. I like the 80:20 rule–80% of my Tweets are about others; 20% about me.
2. Don’t share anything about yourself in your profile. That’s a way to discourage people from following you. People are curious about who you are: tell them and be human about it. I include a link to my LinkedIn profile, and got that idea by looking at a colleague’s profile.
3. Don’t have a picture or brand by your name. That’s an opportunity lost for branding. It’s so much more interesting to see someone’s picture next to their Tweet rather than the ugly, brown default space.

4. Don’t use your Tweets as a chat room. Some people are really just Tweeting to each other. Send that person a direct Tweet. The rest of us feel left out and don’t want to be a part of your personal conversation.

5. Don’t publicly berate anyone in your Tweets. Remember your manners.

6. Twitter is not a megaphone for one way communication. Engage your followers by sharing information you think they will appreciate and ask them questions.

7. Set up a robot to send a standard message thanking people for following you on Twitter. I find this insulting. I would rather get no message than a robotic one.

8. Mass following everyone so you can inflate your numbers, and then use that success metric for influence. Some people will “Brag Tweet” that they just got over 100 followers in a 24 hour period. We followers don’t care! Think about how this makes your followers feel–not very special.

9. Some people argue that you should automatically follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. I think it depends on your goals. I am not in Twitter for the numbers game. I would like to get to know the people who follow me, gradually. For example I am not a huge sports fan or into pumping iron, but somehow I am being followed by these types. BTW, Tweet Deck lets you organize those who follow you in categories that you create. For example, I create separate columns for Tweets from my personal friends, my research and competitive intelligence colleagues, friends in my state of Colorado, and frequent Tweeters.

10. Some people Tweet so often that they fill up their followers’ screens with their Tweets. It’s obvious they’re using software  to send out Tweets periodically 24/7. I’m not knocking the use of technology: just don’t use it to abuse us! I think it’s better to send out occasional Tweets that are relevant to your social networking goals and the brand you are portraying. For example, I mostly report on competitive intelligence, research, marketing, and cooperative intelligence’s traits of leadership, connection and communication.

11. Some people Tweet the mundane details about their life which we really don’t care about like, “I just baked a loaf of bread. I’m waiting for my flight at Denver airport.” This is boring! Is this how you want to be remembered?

12. There are some people who have 1000s of followers, but who follow no one. This is rude and insinuates that you are a taker. The only exception to this rule might be news stations like CNN, but even they want to follow a certain number of people to stay up with the news.

13. Some people just Tweet a link and don’t tell us why we should want to visit it. This takes very little time to include. It’s a real turnoff just to provide a link and makes people think you’re lazy.

So what do you find aggravating about practices on Twitter?

Check out The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know.

In closing, when communicating on social networks, as with in-person networking you have to decide what works best for you based on your objectives for social networking, your ethics and philosophy, and recognize that everyone you connect with has their own standards which might be different from yours. It takes time to build a successful social networking presence just like it does the old fashioned way through meetings and phone calls. Relationships take time to develop, and the best way to nourish them is through continual, consistent communication, asking questions and listening.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperation, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, leadership, research, social networks, Twitter | 11 Comments »

Best Practices in Competitive Technical Intelligence – CTI

Posted on February 17, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I am writing a chapter for the Competitive Intelligence Foundation’s upcoming book, Competitive Technical Intelligence. CTI seeks to identify competitor’s R&D strategy and innovation pipeline to identify the next generation of threats in the marketplace. CTI typically includes the analysis of patents, scientific publications, new sources, open innovation needs, and other technological, engineering or scientific sources. It focuses on identifying technological trends, opportunities and threats, and how these relate to competitors’ business strategies. In the spirit of cooperation, here’s a sneak preview from my chapter, a summary of interviews with CTI experts on “What are best practices for competitive technical intelligence?”

Best in class companies hire a person with the right education and experience to converse knowledgeably with scientists, engineers and business people.  They have the ability to manage relationships across all the company’s functions and with all levels of management.

Other desirable traits include:
– Translate science and concepts into business and marketing terms
– Leave one’s ego aside and work towards the company’s goals
– Have a reputation for seeking win/win outcomes
– Hold sources and information confidentially
– Have the ability to sit in the other guy’s chair whether interviewing or communicating deliverables to various CTI customers
– Be responsive to customers: make sure that KITs (key intelligence topics) you agreed upon are still valid
– Anticipate customer’s needs before they ask
– Work with the competitive intelligence managers and the business side

Organizations that are best in class have senior management who recognize the need for CTI. These executives provide the CTI analyst with relevant insight based on their relationships with industry C-levels.  The CTI staff provides data and analysis to support key executive decisions.

Best in class companies consider primary intelligence gathering a key practice. While technology has made great strides for information collection and organization, people are still needed, since critical thinking is absent strictly using technology. People who conduct R&D are experts in their field and have extensive networks. Tap into individual networks and get access to intra-company networks, company to government R&D organizations, and company to company networks (from conferences and presentations.) Another way to think about this is that everyone has access to published data. Your competitive advantage comes fromasking experts lots of questions and continuing the dialog regularly.

Successful organizations systematically track patents and other scientific or technical developments to identify technologies which might change the marketplace. They have invested in sophisticated database technology which not only collects competitor data, but also classifies it into relevant categories and in some cases maps it out.  This level of sophistication allows the CTI manager to spend more time analyzing the data and meeting with people.  Best in class firms also track changes in consumer attitude and behaviors which could be precursors to new technology acceptance.

Excellent companies support their CTI network with a relational database which links CTI analysts in multiple applications areas across the company.  The CTI team clearly communicates a project criteria list that everyone can understand, since CTI is not on the list of standard departments within a company.

Best in class companies systematically map technology from the earliest research phase all the way through product launch.  So much technology never reaches product launch. They opportunistically identify where and why it stopped in development.  For example, they might acquire the company that was behind the research phase to gain a competitive advantage in product development.

Lastly best in class companies have quality control around CTI deliverables.  Data is validated. One practice is to conduct team analysis before creating the deliverable.  The team would consist of marketing, sales, technical services application development, R&D, who all bring their different points of view of how they perceive information, also their different history.  In this way you don’t jump to conclusions and don’t decide too quickly.

The CTI book will be coming out at SCIP’s annual conference held in Chicago from April 21 – 24. In the meantime, here are two great books on CTI:

Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business by Bradford Ashton & Richard Klavans, 1997  ; and Competitive Technical Intelligence: A Guide to Design, Analysis and Action by Mathias M. Coburn, 1999. BTW, building on his CTI expertise, Brad Ashton is editor of CI Foundation’s Competitive Technical Intelligence.

How do you use CTI in your organization?  Do you have best in class practices to share?

Win/Loss Analysis book gives you a process to learn why you’re losing business and how to keep more of it!

Receive our 6-page Win/Loss Cheat Sheets

Connect on LinkedIn  Connect on Twitter

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, competitive technical intelligence, cooperation, CTI, SCIP | 3 Comments »

Enhance your Early Warning Process through Social Networks & Social Media

Posted on February 14, 2009 by ellendnaylor

In his post, “Beating Dunbar’s Number,” Chris Brogan challenges us to become a member of the magic Dunbar 150 in people’s networks when we want to have a closer relationship. He provokes us to organize the many connections we make through social networks into a database so we can find them easily without remembering their names and recall how/where we met, etc.

I translate this thinking as a competitive intelligence professional into setting up an early warning process using the power of social networks. One of the common pitfalls of many early warning initiatives is that we connect with the people we know and are comfortable with, and get surprised by disruptive technology or a competitor’s acquisition. We also rely too heavily on secondary research on the Internet, and don’t verify our sources. While the information might look good, it can be outdated or a competitor may purposefully mislead.

Social networks are another source to include in your early warning process since they lead to connections that you will never make through Web 1.0 Internet searching, paid databases, company connections and the same external suspects, such as industry experts, scientists and the investment community. Find your industry’s social networks and forums. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are my favorite general social networks for business connections. YouTube, VidePedia and Blinkx are great video sources.

LinkedIn contains over 30 million people. Grow your LinkedIn network: find the people that matter to you: for example, industry experts and competitor alumni and Link In with them. Connecting on LinkedIn is one way to warm up a phone call or email that you might direct to a person. Qualify those who should become part of your early warning process. Once you connect with them, see if any of their connections would be a good fit. Think: who do you want to keep as loose connections?  Which ones should you follow-up with?  How will you communicate with them? Do you call them, email them, find them on Twitter or perhaps comment through a blog post or industry forum? In a cooperative spirit, what will you share with them that they might value? Join relevant industry LinkedIn groups. Search the questions and answers section on LinkedIn. Set up alerts.

Twitter is another great social network since you can search for people by using keyword searching within Twitter. You can either use Twitter Search or twilert. For example, I want to connect with people who do or are interested in competitive intelligence. I set up a twilert which forwards me the Tweets from people who used the words competitive intelligence, just like I do with Google Alerts.

Another great way to find people is through the blogosphere. However, if you want to be more methodical, start with Technorati, Delicious and Digg to find blogs that are relevant to your industry, and identify the most popular ones. In Technorati, the most popular blogs have the most authority. In Delicious and Digg, these are the blog posts which people have tagged most often. Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb  wrote an excellent blog, How to Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet, which provides a methodology to find the best and most relevant blogs to support any topic. I often find people synchronistically through blogs I find on Alltop or Stumbleupon. Sometimes the best blogs have no authority in Technorati since the author hasn’t marketed himself, but is a wealth of information.

The point is: social networks are fertile ground for locating people to include in your early warning process.  Find them, qualify them, organize them in your database, and decide how often you will connect with them or just tag them as loose connections to contact as needed.

How do you use social media to help with your early warning process?  Are there any tips which you have uncovered?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, LinkedIn, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on Enhance your Early Warning Process through Social Networks & Social Media

Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables: SCIP Webinar

Posted on February 12, 2009 by ellendnaylor

This promises to be a great webinar which coincidentally illustrates cooperative intelligence practices, both cooperative communication and cooperative connection. The material Marty Palka covers will also be useful outside of the competitive intelligence profession. Anyone who provides a service will benefit from his ideas.

This Webinar is sponsored by SCIP.
“Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables ”
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. USA EST; Feb. 18, 2009
Fee: Member $95*  Non-member $195*
*A site is one computer used to view the Webinar
Register Here.   scip-webinar-archives

Next generation companies will be more collaborative with far more interactions among their customers, suppliers, employees and partners. This will mandate that competitive intelligence professionals incorporate next generation technology when creating competitive intelligence deliverables.

Through his experience at Cisco, Marty will tell you how to communicate more effectively by adding Web 2.0 technology to your communication arsenal.  He will talk about how to truly connect with people, and how to rate and assess the connection.  Through social networks, you connect with so many more people that you need to stand back and re-assess your connections periodically to concentrate on the most valuable, and to reach out to people in areas where you might be weak, such as innovation.  I like that Marty will share ideas on the other end of connection: how people assess you and your deliverables as a competitive intelligence professional.  It will be the best of both worlds: traditional and Web 2.0 connecting and communicating!

Here are key points that Marty will cover:

1) The Virtual Competitive Intelligence Professional: Locate, rank and rate experts within your organization.
2) Video: Change the process to take advantage of video’s unique attributes to deliver competitive intelligence.
3) Global: Go where the expertise is 24 hours a day.
4) Green: Right for the world and right for your business.
Metrics measure the success of Cisco’s competitive intelligence deliverables.
Quantitative: Number of hits, listeners, viewers, interactions, and actions taken. Qualitative: Recommendations, Revenue, Profitability, Setting the Industry Agenda.

Marty Palka is Chief Intelligence Analyst, (CIA), Investor Relations for Cisco Systems. He has contributed to Cisco Systems’ strategic and tactical intelligence initiatives since joining the company in 1995. Previously he was a Director and Principal Analyst at Dataquest. He has also worked at SGI, Prime Computer, and Data General. He earned his M.B.A and B.S. from Boston University.

Questions:
Contact Registration: memberservices@scip.org
Program content & logistics: Sandy Skipper at +1.703.739.0696 x110, sskipper@scip.org
Robyn Reals at +1.703.739.0696 X107, rreals@scip.org

Learn about more SCIP events.

Learn about SCIP’s annual conference here.scip-09-chicago

Take advantage of the special Early Bird Reduced rate until the close of registration, April 12th, 2009.  All that is required is that my name, Ellen Naylor, be mentioned on the attached form which should be faxed to 703-739-2524.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, social networks | Comments Off on Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables: SCIP Webinar

Sharpen Your Emotional Intelligence Skills

Posted on February 7, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Emotional Intelligence is a important component of cooperative intelligence. Referred to as EI, often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), it is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power of emotions to facilitate high levels of collaboration and productivity. (Cooper & Sawaf 1998, Executive IQ, New York: Perigee)

According to Daniel Goleman, the father and author of Emotional Intelligence, there are 5 skills that enable EI:

1. Self awareness – knowing your moods, emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others

2. Self regulation – the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods and the propensity to suspend judgment and think before acting

3. Motivation – a passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status and a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence

4. Empathy – understanding other people’s emotional makeup and the skill to treat people according to their emotional reactions

5. Social skill – an ability to find common ground and build rapport. Skill in managing relationships and building networks

In my field of competitive intelligence a high EQ is helpful since we’re often delivering people bad news like, “Competitor A is getting ready to launch a disruptive technology,” or “We need to get this product to market before Competitor A or does else we’ll lose X% market share.” We are being paid to “tell the truth” and we cause stress since often “they” don’t want to hear bad news or threats to the business even if it is the truth. We have to stay strong to deliver bad news, and also be sensitive as to how “they” are going to take the news and not spring surprises, for example. I found one way not to be regarded as Darth Vader is to present management with opportunities as well.

What’s neat about EI versus IQ is that we can learn and be coached to improve our EI skills, whereas we’re born with a certain IQ. In this vein, I am studying to be a certified mentor for a company called EQmentor founded by the genius of Izzy Justice.

What’s really neat about EQmentor is it’s all on-line and there is total anonymity between mentors and mentees. I think their timing is really right as about 70% of communication is electronic, an indication of its high acceptance. When I formed The Business Intelligence Source  in 1993, my phone rang all day. Now it’s email, Twitter Tweets, LinkedIn and Facebook communication that talk to me 24/7.

EQmentor provides an incredible repository of information that mentors and mentees have access to in addition to members of the EQmentor community. The company carefully matches mentors and mentees and the relationship is a 6 month engagement, long enough to make a change in a person’s life. I know the price is right compared to traditional coaching so it will be affordable to more people.

What do you think about this concept at EQmentor? How do you use emotional intelligence in your profession?

Win/Loss Analysis book gives you a process to learn why you’re losing business and how to keep more of it!

Receive our 6-page Win/Loss Cheat Sheets

Connect on LinkedIn  Connect on Twitter

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, Cooperative Intelligence, emotional intelligence, LinkedIn, Twitter | 4 Comments »

Diplomat Dennis Ross: Cooperative Leader & Active Listener

Posted on February 5, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I was inspired by Kit Cooper’s  interview with Dennis Ross, one of the most skilled diplomats in the world who was appointed by President Obama to serve as the chief envoy for Iran.

“I tell people that work with me that one of the most important skills in negotiations is active listening. I believe in not always asking questions with the purpose of getting the other side to reveal things. There is immense, untapped benefit to getting a deep understanding of what drives them and you certainly build good will with such an approach. “Why is that issue important to you? I want to understand it the way you understand it. I don’t want to have a false impression. Explain to me why that matters so much to you. Where does it come from? Why does it create an imperative?” You can’t find the underlying sources of behavior and issues unless you ask questions in this way. When people see that I am curious by being an active listener, they get a message of respect from me. And of course you have the benefit of actually learning something.”

Mr. Ross’s actions and attitude are that of a cooperative leader. Cooperative leadership is more a state of mind than a position within a company or in politics. Leaders are uncomfortable with the status quo, and live uncertain, risk filled lives and yet have a sense of belonging to the human race. They are life long learners who often serve and contribute to others. Thus people who work for them or connect with them in everyday life are uplifted and feel free. A cooperative leader really values and trusts the interdependence of relationships. Active listening is a leading characteristic of a cooperative leader and crosses all job functions. I think executives who are cooperative leaders give their companies a tremendous competitive advantage since they are open to listening and learning so are less likely to be blind sided by surprise market developments, new technology or an emerging competitor.

BTW if you want to gain great insight into Dennis Ross, check out his book, Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, Cooperative Intelligence, leadership | Tagged: , | Comments Off on Diplomat Dennis Ross: Cooperative Leader & Active Listener

Win Loss Analysis is more than Competitive Intelligence

Posted on February 4, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Win loss analysis is my favorite tactical cooperative intelligence practice as it offers the best ROI of any sales intelligence tool. You gain intelligence by interviewing your customers shortly after the sales event to find out why they chose to do business with you or decided on a competitor. The data gathered combines knowledge from sales, customers, competitors, and your marketplace.

Consider these points to develop a cooperative B to B win loss process:

  • Clearly identify objectives for conducting win loss
  • Invest the time to develop the questions you want answered
  • Include Sales
  • Maintain professionalism throughout the process
  • Don’t just “survey” your customers
  • Don’t just interview losses; include wins
  • Communicate findings broadly within your company

I’ve conducted win/loss interviews and analysis for years, and enjoyed reading Ford Harding’s post, “Learning from Loss,” where he shared findings from Ken Sawka of Outward Insights about what can be obtained from conducting win loss interviews.

What I found most interesting was Ford’s experience in professional services firms where partners do the work and make or lose the sale so there isn’t a dedicated sales force.  Ford’s focus isn’t competitive intelligence so his perspective is valuable to those of us with our heads in the competitive intelligence sandbox.  He is the author of Rain Making: Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field.  A rain maker is an employee who creates a significant amount of new business to a company. Rain Making uncovers how professional services are marketed successfully in terrific detail.  I decided to buy the book to gain the perspective of selling in professional services as I sold in the retail and telecommunications arenas. BTW Rain Making gets very good reviews on Amazon.

As a competitive intelligence professional, you will be more successful in capturing competitive data from sales if you build your emotional intelligence by gaining an understanding and empathy for the challenges and joys of their job. You will most certainly acquire this from Rain Making.  You might even give your company’s sales and PR folks some tippers from this book.

For more reading on win loss analysis consider this article, “Increasing Sales through Win Loss Analysis.”

Do you conduct win loss interviews at your company?  If so, how have you used the findings to improve your business?

Be notified when our book, Win/Loss Analysis: How to Clinch and Keep the Business You Want is published.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, emotional intelligence, win loss analysis | Tagged: | 7 Comments »

Don’t be a verbal pack rat!

Posted on February 3, 2009 by ellendnaylor

This is inspired by Seth Godin’s post entitled, “Sorry we’re out of time.”

Here is the part which spoke to me:

“I often hear presenters who always manage to need just two more minutes than the time allows. So, instead of exiting gracefully when there’s ten seconds left on the clock, they either steal time from the next person or try to rush through six slides and their conclusion.

What a waste.

Do you save the most important part of the meeting for the end, when everyone is already standing?

Plan for the end.”

OK I am guilty as charged as I always have more than enough material to cover in a presentation right up to the end.  Why do I do this?  I am a researcher at heart and I want to impart as much information as I can so my audience gets their money’s worth.  That is what I appreciate in a speaker, lots of information flying at me.  I am a verbal pack rat, just like “ahem” the electronic and paper files that are overflowing in my office.

But does my audience really get their money’s worth from this verbal pack rat? Is it really respectful for me to barrage them with more information than they can process in the time allotted?

Thank you Seth. Verbal pack rats are often guilty of one-way communication. I never really thought about it this way. I am going to shorten my presentation material into more easily digestible bites, and think about the end, since the ending comments are often the longest lasting with audiences.  I will also leave some time for questions and interaction with the audience, which is also respectful.

This really epitomizes cooperative communication. Consider how every audience wants to be addressed with respect. Give them enough time to process the information you present and the opportunity to get answers to their questions.

Think about the end. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  ~ Dr. Maya Angelou

Filed under: communication, Cooperative Intelligence | 1 Comment »

Netiquette on LinkedIn

Posted on February 2, 2009 by ellendnaylor

LinkedIn is primarily a business to business social network with over 30 million members as of Jan. 09.  Users have different objectives and come from different cultures on LinkedIn.  Some people use it to connect with people who they would never otherwise know.  These people benefit from the synchronicity of connecting that often happens in my field of competitive intelligence during the process of cold calling where one source tells the caller the names of additional sources. At the other end of the spectrum are those who will only connect with people they know. Remember there is an individual behind that electronic connection to avoid blunders that put you in WIFM-land. (what’s in it for me)

Here are 12 LinkedIn bad habits I find particularly annoying:

1. The writer tries to make the invitations look customized.  I see right through that, so does everyone else.  I prefer invitations that get right to the point and invite me to join a person’s LinkedIn network.  If it’s customized I like that even better and I can tell for example that s/he decided to connect with me based on something s/he read from my profile or perhaps we are in the same LinkedIn group.  If I don’t know the person that well, I appreciate knowing how we met.

2. I don’t like being solicited for non-relevant services by my direct LinkedIn connections.  That is the downside of being a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker).  Others assume that we want to receive emails that promote their business.

3. I am continually asked to LinkIn with people who I am already connected with.  Some of them send out big email blasts and ask everyone to connect with them and claim they’re out of invitations (many of them are not).

4. If you want someone to connect with you on LinkedIn, ask them.  Some people ask me to go to their profile and initiate the invitation.  They often claim to be out of invitations.  Most of them are not.  They want you to use up your invitations.

5. I don’t like being invited into LinkedIn groups that obviously are not a good match for me.  For example, many recruiters have invited me to join their recruiting group on LinkedIn.  I am not a recruiter and wish they would look more look at targeted profiles before they send out these massive email blasts.

6. I don’t like being asked to recommend someone unless I know him or her.  Some people ask me who barely know me.  It makes me feel like I’m part of their cattle drive to collect endorsements, and that they don’t care about the quality.  You can tell when an endorsement is shallow so I don’t know why anyone would want one.

7. I also get aggravated by those who thank me for connecting with them and proceed to write me a long sales pitch. If you want people to read your “thank-you for connecting note,” you need to make it personal or don’t bother!  “Thanks you for connecting: let me know how I can help you” is a “non-thank-you” note.

8. LinkedIn has a Question and Answer section.  Some people ask questions to direct people to their business and it’s really an obnoxious ploy.  You can tell by how they ask the question and look at the name of their business and title.

9. Many people’s questions are dumb.  They’re so broad that you could write a book to answer them or they’re so unclear and in such poor English that I don’t understand them.  Think! Proofread!  Remember, the quality of your answers is directly related to the quality of your questions.

10. When answering questions, answer the question in the spirit of sharing and giving.  We don’t want to read all about your business.  LinkedIn links readers back to your profile.  It’s just like people who overtly advertise their business while making a presentation.  It turns people off.  You’ll get plenty of business by giving a good presentation, just like you will if you give good answers and are declared an expert on LinkedIn.

11. I am aggravated by people on LinkedIn whose profiles tell me nothing about what they do.  They are as brief as they can be and just go back through a couple of jobs, and I know they’re older than that.  These are often the same ones who are not open to being contacted: why are they on LinkedIn?

12. At the bottom of a person’s profile, some people are only willing to be contacted if it benefits them.  Their profile reads something like this:

Contact Settings
Interested In

business deals                    job inquiries
career opportunities

Someone who is a giver will include all the Contact Settings which includes ways that person might help others:

Contact Settings
Interested In

career opportunities           consulting offers
new ventures                        job inquiries
expertise requests              business deals
reference requests             getting back in touch

So these are my Big 12 No No’s on LinkedIn.  Do you have others to add?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, LinkedIn, social networks | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »