Active moderation appears to be the key. Without some judicious weeding and
guidance, the group discussions get smothered by poor quality content.

- Mary

With respect to the rolodex view of LinkedIn, I'd say that you're in excellent company!

On the issue of contacts, I've heard that there is an alternative theory that suggests that our LinkedIn contacts shouldn't be limited to just friends and acquaintances, but should stretch to people who are within our sphere, albeit it around the edges. This theory suggests that in an era of weak ties, the more such ties you have, the better. The downside is that once you let everyone into your circle, you may have to make difficult decisions about which requests you will fulfill and which people you will ignore.

Thanks for being such a diligent moderator of a LinkedIn group. I wish the others were as diligent. I've found that the presence of low-quality discussion topics, shallow consultant opinion pieces, and cheap ploys by folks trawling for contacts has greatly diminished the usefulness of Groups for me. It's a shame there isn't a rating system for groups. Perhaps that might clean things up a little.

Finally, the issue of LinkedIn's value proposition is important. If all you're doing is keeping your own contact information up to date, then the value proposition is positive. But the moment you start wasting time on difficult requests or dead-end discussions, LinkedIn becomes expensive because it starts costing too much time.

- Mary

- Mary

I probably could make better use of it by being more aggressive in adding to my contacts through “friends of friends” — but frankly, I'm having a hard enough time as it is managing the contacts I have now, and I don't see the point in adding people just for the sake of having them on my contacts list. The whole point of “contacts” is that you actually, you know, contact them once in a while, and that's extremely hard to do with everything else pressing in all the time. Adding more contacts only makes that harder.

As for the Groups, I agree there's a lot of work involved in keeping them free from marketing bumpf. I recently stepped down as owner of the Legal Innovation Group, mostly because I just had too many other demands on my time and I couldn't give it the necessary attention — but the hassle of constantly deleting vendors' posts was also disheartening. That said, groups like Legal Innovation do offer good discussions precisely because they're moderated (my successor is doing a great job), and there are a few other good ones in the law (there's a very promising one about the 21st-century business model for law firms). Like most things online, there's a lot of chaff, but some good wheat too.

Overall, I'd say LinkedIn is useful for keeping track of contacts in an online networked world, and for picking up helpful insights and information (and it's not like I'm paying for it, so the value proposition is positive). Beyond that, I think it requires a lot more effort than I'm willing or able to give in order to really power-up its benefits.

70% is a pretty good proportion. It sounds like you've found the right groups for your interests. Do you use a particular process for identifying productive groups?

- Mary

It sounds like some of the value is simply in showing up and being present. It will be interesting to see if lawyers are able to convert that mere presence into engagements by paying clients.

- Mary

Also, potential clients will be looking in LinkedIn to see what they can find out about you. If you're not there, they're going to be drawing adverse conclusions.

I read about 10% of what is published based on what interests me.

About 70% of the posted articles in the professional groups are non-marketing articles – most are links to other sources. The professional groups are very well policed. The marketing is limited to consultants in the field publishing editorials.

In the alumni goup the marketing is very easy to spot and ignore. There has been a big push by the alumni users to censure marketing spam, so I expect the amount will drop over time.

Dave

- Mary

- Mary