Linkedin SaaS group update

2009 November 3
by Justin Pirie

Hi All
Since we last wrote to you, the group has gone from strength to strength. We’ve not only grown massively (over 13k members now) but some of the discussions have been brilliant!

All the growth however, is not without its issues and as the group grows the temptation to spam grows with it… The main point of contention seems to be the discussions, because they get emailed out every day to our members and people see it as an easy way to market themselves. As moderators we’ve been working harder to remove irrelevant posts and I hope you’ve noticed the improvements! If you’ve previously unsubscribed to our daily digest- maybe it’s time to think about re-subscribing???

I wanted to say a couple of things about discussions- as that is where as moderators we are spending most of our time. I think the most important thing to remember is that joining an existing discussion is much more powerful than starting a new one for several reasons. Firstly, all the people who have already commented get an instant email and because they’ve already commented they are much more likely to read and respond to your comments- which is the whole purpose of social media- connecting people. Use the search to find relevant discussions to learn and comment on.

Also while on discussions, people seem to be posting links to content elsewhere without any real reason for starting a discussion. I think the quid pro quo for posting links to discussions is that it needs to be accompanied by some analysis and provoke a discussion- especially if it’s your own blog! I guess the flaw is that Linkedin isn’t integrated with anything else…

Between writing the first draft of this email and posting it to you, we’ve seen a couple of really interesting things. Today, Scobleizer wrote a brilliant post on why we need controls to keep the conversation relevant- worth a read at http://bit.ly/1w8LSX We want to keep improving the group and we’re looking for your input and suggestions on how to do it.

In line with what Scobleizer wrote- we’ve been thinking about starting a weekly newsletter or digest to highlight the good stuff happening in the group and important developments elsewhere in SaaS. It would be a place for aggregating and human filtering / analysing content rather than the overload of information we’ve all become used to. It would be great if it could be group/community driven too. Our initial thoughts for inclusion are:

• The week’s best discussions in the group (in case you missed it)
• The week’s important developments in SaaS with some good blog posts to read (if you’re too busy to get through your rss reader)
• Upcoming Events (including relevant webinars)
• Featured members

Anything else missing? Thoughts?

For those of you on twitter- we’ve created two lists for us- one on SaaS and the other on Cloud Computing. They are at http://twitter.com/justinpirie/saas and http://twitter.com/justinpirie/cloud If you want to be added to the list- tweet me something like “hey @justinpirie, I want to be included in the SaaS or Cloud Twitter list.” It’s going to take some time to get through all the responses so please bear with me.

Lastly- we have had for some time the ability to have sub-groups and have created ones for partnerships and webinars. If you want to host a specific topic within the SaaS community- we’ll help you set up a group and promote it.

This is your group and we want your feedback!

Agostino, Henrik and Justin

Agostino Paganini – http://www.linkedin.com/in/agostinopaganini
Henrik Gammelgaard – http://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikg
Justin Pirie – http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinpirie

from → Linkedin, SaaS

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelDunham MichaelDunham

    Interesting – for me I guess value in a group “should be” the ability to share information, ideas, best practices with my peers. Unfortunately it has never worked out that way for long as you point out. And frankly, the overhead involved in keeping the “noise” down is just too much most of the time. So – groups, forums, etc – eventually devolve to become noisy and you either ignore them or drop off.

    I have to admit the addition of lists has been one of the greatest things Twitter has done. I think of it as a filter system where I can quickly check information from sources “I” trust and want to hear from and “I” selected. It isn't that I don't value what may come from other sources in my follower pool. It is a way to focus on a limited subset and participate with them separately.

    I think subgroups “could” work this way to some extent, but still they lack some of the simple features that make the Twitter lists so valuable. I don't have to repost anything for my tweets to be in the stream on the lists I appear on. I don't have to do anything to appear on a list other than contribute value to the list owner. <<period>>.

    Without a lot more moderation than anyone has time for – I don't know how that simple idea coulld be translated to LinkedIn in its existing form. So, we're left with a “community culture” that needs to guide things and honestly – culture is a hard thing to cultivate. All I can imagine is that we keep posting things about the culture and promoting it. It won't end with this article I'm sure.

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelDunham MichaelDunham

    Interesting – for me I guess value in a group “should be” the ability to share information, ideas, best practices with my peers. Unfortunately it has never worked out that way for long as you point out. And frankly, the overhead involved in keeping the “noise” down is just too much most of the time. So – groups, forums, etc – eventually devolve to become noisy and you either ignore them or drop off.

    I have to admit the addition of lists has been one of the greatest things Twitter has done. I think of it as a filter system where I can quickly check information from sources “I” trust and want to hear from and “I” selected. It isn't that I don't value what may come from other sources in my follower pool. It is a way to focus on a limited subset and participate with them separately. Think of it like bookmarking or RSS subscriptions. It is a personal choice of what I need/want to be able to access efficiently.

    I think subgroups “could” work this way to some extent, but still they lack some of the simple features that make the Twitter lists so valuable. I don't have to repost anything for my tweets to be in the stream on the lists I appear on. I don't have to do anything to appear on a list other than contribute value to the list owner. <<period>>.

    Without a lot more moderation than anyone has time for – I don't know how that simple idea coulld be translated to LinkedIn in its existing form. So, we're left with a “community culture” that needs to guide things and honestly – culture is a hard thing to cultivate. All I can imagine is that we keep posting things about the culture and promoting it. It won't end with this article I'm sure.