How Not to Manage a LinkedIn Group
Normally I’m not one to call people/companies/organizations out for things that they do to me. I generally handle things behind the scenes if I think I’ve been wronged and move on with my life but in this specific instance I decided that it was worth posting about because it could potentially happen to any of us.
Here is the situation. For the past few years I have been an outspoken fan of Fusion Productions DigitalNow conference. In my humble opinion it’s one of the best organized and programmed conferences that I have had the opportunity and privilege to attend in my career and I always walked away energized, inspired and full of new ideas and flush with new contacts. I started off as a simple participant in 2007, but was among the very few who was tweeting the event live – long before Twitter was the in thing. Last year, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel led by Ben Martin and had a lot of fun doing so. To me going to a conference pales in comparison to being a real part of the conference.
2009 marked the first time in three years that I wasn’t able to attend/participate due to financial constraints but I still kept track of what was going on through the vibrant Twitterstream. It wasn’t as good as being there but thanks to my association friends I was able to glean some pretty useful and interesting nuggets of wisdom and I even got to see Ben do a live demo of Mogulus. I wasn’t there physically but I was definitely there in spirit.
At some point as I observed the festivities I was alerted to the DigitalNow LinkedIn group and decided that it was a good group to join on with because (a) it’s an a group that I share an affinity with and (b) I like keeping as many contact points as possible between my association colleagues and myself. The DN group was a bit different than many I have joined (and am actively participating in) on LinkedIn in that it was by approval only. A hurdle no doubt, but one that I felt was worth dealing with in order to gain access to what I perceived to be a great community of folks. In the rare instances where I have joined “by approval” groups on LinkedIn, I have normally been approved within a few hours.
Aside: I only join groups where I either have a specific tie or think I can add value – groups to me are to be treated seriously and I don’t join them just to have a pretty badge associated with my name. That is pretty much my entire approach to social networking.
Well in this unique experience I didn’t get an immediate response. In fact my request to join went unanswered for quite a while. Finally this morning I did receive a response and here is what it said:
Julie McKown has sent you a message.
Date: 4/22/2009
Subject: [DigitalNow Community] Your DigitalNow Community request
Group: DigitalNow CommunityDear David:
Thank you for your interest in joining the DigitalNow Community group on LinkedIn.
DigitalNow is the name of an annual conference produced by Fusion Productions and Disney Institute. It was started as a way to provide Association Executives and Senior leaders with a forum for private conversations about issues of import. The expectation of our audience – and of our LinkedIn group members – is that we provide a place for them to have those conversations in a non-sales environment.
Therefore, we are only able to extend invitations to participate to members of our audience, past and present speakers and presenters, and a small group of Resource Center partners who participate in our conference. (For information on how you can become a DigitalNow Resource Center partner, please contact us at digitalnow@fusionproductions.com
We can offer you other ways to take part in our community. We invite you to follow us on Twitter.com (our user name is DigitalNow), and you may also submit articles of interest to our blog at DigitalNowblog.com.
Again, we thank you for your interest in the DigitalNow Community group.
Sincerely,
The DigitalNow Team
Imagine my surprise in reading this response this morning. What I had expected was a warm welcome from Julie. And while she may not remember we interacted pretty regularly in advance of last years conference and I even went out of my way to track her down in person to say thank you for her help. However, what I received instead was pretty disappointing. Here is how I interpreted it. I really don’t know who you are and instead of checking my past records to see if you have a legitimate reason for trying to join our group I am going to say no. However, because I am opportunistic I am going to see if I can increase our Twitter follower count by one and see if you are naive enough to give us some of your valuable content as great search engine fodder for our blog.
Had Julie done even a basic Google search (dave sabol digital now – check for yourself) she would have seen the first 6 or so entries related to me and my past participation in the conference. I literally went from a raving fan to a skeptical observer in the matter of the time that it took me to read the email.
Now this isn’t an attack on Julie per se. In my past interactions with her she was warm, kind and wonderful, but this experience left me doubting whether DigitalNow is an event I want to continue to support as an outspoken advocate. I personally know that I convinced a number of friends and colleagues to attend this years event and years past as well. Maybe they don’t want my support and involvement. That’s ok though because I am sure that there are many others who are willing to pay the $600 or $700 registration plus what ever it costs for transportation and accommodations for the privilege of attending such an event.
But that really isn’t the point. I think it’s the underlying message that I was provided with – that I wasn’t worthy and they had to monitor their membership closely to keep out the undesirable elements – is what really bothered me. I have a little more than a little knowledge on building effective and sustainable online communities, in fact that was my primary area of responsibility prior to leaving PMI. So I understand establishing criteria for membership in a specific group, but as a past participant, contributor and advocate who wasn’t allowed in I have to wonder how high that bar is set.
When creating an online community ask yourself a few questions prior to doing so: are you trying to create a community or a country club? More importantly how willing are you to alienate specific member groups to preserve the sanctity of others? If an online community can be found, chances are people, especially those who are enthusiastic about the topic, subject, company, etc., will want to join it. How do you act in a similar situation?
Definitely an interesting situation, one full of learning opportunities for everyone, and something that I will likely never forget…unfortunately.
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My name is Dave Sabol and I work at the intersection of technology, online learning and knowledge management. Associated Knowledge is my way of capturing the insight that I gain as I navigate my way through the world of social media and open source technology.
That’s interesting, Dave, because I received an invite from Don Dea to join the group, although I have never attended a single Digital Now or shown any signs of being interested in it!
Helen I agree. I guess I’m no longer part of their target demographic.
Very strange, Dave. I have never attended or spoken at Digital Now but was accepted into the group shortly after it was launched. I really don’t understand why you would be excluded. Or, why anyone would frankly. If it were an open community, it would be a good marketing tool for recruiting attendees and IDing future speakers.
Dina my sentiments exactly. As a repeat attendee I am a ripe candidate for this sort of approach. That’s why this whole thing is so vexing to me. Hey they are getting PR via WOM just not the kind they probably had hoped for.
Dave-
I think you’re right in your assessment of how they handled the situation. If you are a former contributor and someone who raves about your past experience, you would think that YOU would be the perfect person for them to include in this group!
Also, I LOVED your question at the end – “are you trying to build a community or a country club?” I think that really is a great way of looking at social networks, and is something that is an easy visual for execs and others who may not be on board with the open concept of social networking.
Thanks!
Bruce Hammond
This kind of stuff leaves a really bad taste – and they did it to the wrong person. We’re all spreading this story all over the association blogosphere. It was a hot topic in our NTEN chat room today, and who knows where it will go next. Why be exclusionary in public spaces like this? It’s so lame. It’s not like they are a membership association restricting their stuff to members only for valid reasons. They are a for-profit company making money off association execs.
Seems to be little doubt they’re going for the Country Club approach. What makes that all the more amusing is their apparent inability to correctly apply their own rules for becoming a member of that club. I hope they’re better at organising conferences.
Bruce, thanks so much for the response. I think it was an arbitrary and unfair decision and a really fine example of what not to do in a situation like this. What bothers me the most is the digital paper trail of correspondence that I have between myself and Jule/Kay from Fusion from years past. The question of exclusivity versus inclusiveness really seems to be at the root of this whole situation. Especially from an organization like Fusion that promotes the power of online communities, I expected so much more.
Maddie, it does leave a very bad taste in my mouth and I would have been similarly disappointed if it were any one of us who are active in the association community and try to give considerably more than we get. Obviously, they want to portray themselves (or so it seems) as giving to the association community but in the day and age of transparency, you have to walk the talk or risk getting called out on it. I for one am calling them out and hope someone from Fusion (preferably Don or Hugh) take a moment to jump into the thread. The fact that both Lindy and I (and who knows who else) were denied entry is really their loss as we are among the countless others (yourself included) who really try to do the right thing for the advancement of Associations in general.
Scott, thanks for stopping by and commenting. I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s not only about perception it’s about the reality. If you are selling one idea and doing something completely different you are exposing yourself to a lot of scrutiny. I can say in their defense that their conferences are pretty darn classy and well run, hence my disappointment of being denied the ability to associate with a company/event that I had respected so much, at least until recently! Feel free to stop by to keep updated on this. I don’t intend on letting this go without getting some sort of resolution/answers. Cheers!
Wow–this is almost as bad as the story about the Ketchum/Fed-Ex Twitter thing! I can’t help but think (hope?) that there was some sort of misunderstanding and they accidentally rejected you by clicking the wrong button? I say this because I manage my association’s group on Linkedin and it is limited to members. I have to go through the requests to join manually, look each person up in our database and either approve or decline them. There have been times when I’ve accidentally declined members because of some snag with our database–maybe they used a nickname in Linkedin or something, or recently got married. Or sometimes I must have just plain looked it up wrong.
If someone isn’t a member I send them a similar note to the one you received: thanks for your interest; sorry but it’s limited to members; please feel free to join over 11,000 ASHA members and fans of our page on Facebook or to follow us on Twitter. (obviously in a better format than that!)
After mistakenly declining a member, I changed the text of the letter to say something like “our records show you are not currently a member of ASHA; please let me know if this is not the case.” That way, it hopefully at least dampens their anger at being rejected by an association they are a member of!
The only other thing I can think of is maybe it wasn’t Julie herself who actually sent the message–maybe someone else in the office signs in with her login to administer the group?
I admit I’m grasping at straws here, hoping there’s some explanation, because if not, this is just ridiculous. What kind of strategy is that: let’s alienate potential future attendees and offend past attendees and presenters?
I’m not really understanding why they thought a Linkedin group would be a good idea.
Oh, and I like how you’re invited to email them to find out how much it costs to buy your way into the group by becoming a Resource Partner.
Now I have to go apply to the group myself to see what kind of email response I get!
Maggie, such a thoughtful response and I really appreciate the time it took you to write it. I do hope you one of your explanations is correct, but it would be great to hear directly from them to provide some clarity to the situation. The choice of a LinkedIn group is also questionable but I suspect they didn’t want to go to the trouble of creating something stand alone but wanted to be able to cultivate the potential of the community that forms around DigitalNow. Regardless of the approach or the reason for their decision I think that what would be most helpful is if somebody from Fusion stepped up and said something – anything – to explain things. If I am truly not the type of person they want in their tribe I’d be ok with it provided they have a valid business reason for it and are willing to articulate it in a public forum. However, saying what they said in the manner they said it essentially makes it sound as though I am not worthy of their time and consideration. I may not be directly tied to an association presently, but what happens when I become a player once again – which I will? Are they really that arrogant or ambivalent? I sure hope not, but again I guess we will have to see what plays out. To date I have seen/heard anything from them. Hopefully that will change soon. Thanks again for stopping by!