Le blog de Vanina Delobelle

Here is a new product management category where I am going to propose some improvements that can be done on some products I particularly like.

The first to be addressed is LinkedIn and here are the improvements I am proposing :

Homepage

• Be able to personalize the homepage with the kind of information the user is interested in. This can be different depending on the user. Use the same functionality as the Google drag and drop for the homepage personalization.

• Set a maximum number of questions, new connexions…that are going to be displayed on the homepage. This might depend on each user.

Pricing

• Decrease the annual fees. Propose for example 20$ per year as Flickr does.

• Propose either different pricing depending on the different functionalities the user is interested in. For example I might be interested to pay more to see who visits my profile while I would not be interested in getting more introductions. This might be different for another user.

Search

• Possibility for the user to refine a people search also based on the network level (1st, 2nd, 3rd)

Profile

• Possibility to add a picture on the profile. This might be another way to remember some people as the network increases.

• Interest in being able to organize the connexions upon categories (friends, co-workers, blogers, …) and not only based on alphabetical order.

• Propose some more networking metrics in order to better increase the user's way of networking.

Rediffusion du 29 juin 2006


Following my previous article Social networking: we cannot do without it ! , I would like to go deeper into this subject by approaching the specific case of LikedIn. This is a wonderful tool !

Naina has a blog talking broadly about it.

As I already said, each one applies its own rules to social networking. In our network we certainly have different levels of peole:

• Those that we know very well for a long time.

• Those that we worked with.

• Those that we never met on face to face but who we knew over phone or mail just because they are in other countries.

• Those that we have in your linkedIn just not to lose their contact details.

Therefore, all these levels makes it interesting to use this tool. Unfortunately the application does not yet anable to categorize the contacts.

I personaly like using it and I am not reluctant at sharing my network with others since this is the game. The more people you know, the more opportunities you will get. However, I do not find it fair, those who accept an invitation but who do not share their network (linkedIn enables such behavior). I much more appreciate those who do not accept the invitation rather than accepting and then not sharing. Indeed, not sharing means taking in one side but not giving on the other one and this is not the way social networking is working. I fortunately only have very very few of these people in my network but others have much more. Reciprocity is the word ! That means if they have 50 contacts in they network, they use these 50 contacts' network without sharing anything ! Isn't it a selfish attitude !

We should not use LinkedIn to get something. We should just share without idea in mind. The more you share, the more you will get. Maybe not today but one day. Fortunately we know a lot of people some very well, others less but it is always a pleasure getting a mail from one of them saying where they are, what they do, just giving news to preserve the link. We will not do business with all of them but it brings so much meeting everyday new people...

I am going to take the drawbacks of the previous article I wrote and which was called Est-ce normal qu'un dirigeant de PME ne gagne pas plus que le SMIC ?

Between having high social charges and not getting results from one's investment and becoming a slaver, there might be a difference ! The problem is that some people do not have any hindrance and just fall on the other side.

Modern slavery exists...even in Prague. There are some big manufacturing companies that have closed some of their factories in Canada for example or elsewhere and who are growing the one they have in Czech Republic. There, they have workers who are paid 200€/month and work like crazy. They live far away in a dormitory town where they share a single room with 3 or 4 other persons. The company brings them by bus early in the morning and return them back late in the night. And they work and work. But how can we really live with 200€? This is incredible when you think that in France there are some people who, without working, earn 400€ and even with this amount cannot afford their living.

How companies can accept such situations? How can a manager sleeps well knowing this? This is just modern slavery and it does exist. We must not accept this. Even if everybody agrees that some countries are exagerating in term of companies charges, we must not go to the extrem. Alcatel is closing currently some units in France...and guess what? They will for sure open or increase others in other countries where workforce is cheaper. How can we accept such differences within Europe? Aren't we supposed to be one single country? Just be aware that modern slavery does exist not far from your frontiers !

Applications

• Innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed and independant developers

• Lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication

• Easy to pick up early adopters

• Human connection

Technologies

• Ajax

• CSS

• XHTML and use of microformats

• RSS/Atom

• Folksonomies (tag and tagclouds)

• Net linking

• Wiki

• Weblogs

• Mashup

• XML

Practices

• Ongoing release management

• Users are at the center of both the product requirements and the product testing

• No communication, most of the communication is done by blogers

• A shorten project management process

• A constant innovation.

Seems obvious, seems normal but is far to be applied. In our current society people behave as if they were alone; they just do what they want without taking care of others.

And there are too many examples in this area:

• You make noise in the night. What about your neighbours who are sleeping? Do not care !

• You are late to your appointment and drive like crazy. What about the other drivers and their safety? Do not care !

• You smoke in any place. What about this lady with her baby sitting next to you? Do not care !

• You are laughing and talking for hours with some collegues. What about your other collegue trying to concentrate on his job? Do not care !

• You do not show up at a meeting. What about the others that were waiting for you and who needed your feedback? Do not care!

...and the list can be long...

Nobody is alone. What we are doing always impacts others so can we just consider these “others” to some point. At least be aware of them and appologize when you are doing something which is disturbing them ! (Excuses is not even always the rule) Do not do to others what you wouldn't like them to do to you ! (probably translated directly from a french moto but so real).

So please, please, do respect each other for the good sake of everybody, life will be so easier !

Everybody needs to be driven to make big achievements. Even the best cannot do big things without this little fire. What happens when the fire goes? Some painful times to try to find a reason why we are doing one thing. We are surrounding in a life which is not really ours, trying to find the path to happiness. This does not mean that these people are bad, they just do not know the “why”.

As managers, it is up to us to bring the best of them and to help them find the path. We cannot do miracles for some, who have a very deep concern with their fire. But for most of us, fire can go very quickly but also come back very quickly.

In our society, we spend too much time at delivering, we run all the time, we never think. Each people need to step back to some point and really wonder if what he is currently doing is the right thing. Analyzing, thinking, creating, stepping back is the lack of most of people. Why? Probably just because it is the easiest way to behave. Without thinking, no concerns, no worries, just a daily stress which is much easier to carry than an existential one. But one day or another we all need to look backward and, if we are not used to, it could be terrific.

Let's all give us some time to think in order to really find the reason why we do or have done one thing.

From outside, the French kissing seems to be very strange. Indeed, lots of foreigners feel very strange this French habit and had to cope with it like La petite anglaise. It is so strange that others coach newcomers to French habits like Nathalie in order to help them better understand how it works.

When you are abroad and that you keep your nice French habit, some just look at you in a strange way, not really knowing how to behave with you.

On the other hand, foreigners do not know how to do with these French people who are kissing everybody and who are always kissing each other !

As a French, we all know that there are some rules behind the French kiss and kissing people does not mean that you do have some feelings for somebody, but it does not mean either that you do not have some, here is the trick :)

For example, we do not kiss somebody we see for the very first time (unless it is the friend of a friend or you were already in touch with this person). Usually it means that we estimate people. We also do not have to give a kiss to people we do not like. In South of France we kiss each other more frequently that in the North.

Rules are however very difficult to catch behind this so my advice is just to follow the movement, isn't it always nice to receive a kiss?

Lots of people complain because they have not been hired because of their language level. On the other hand some managers pretend they do not hire based on language skills but more on experience but when it comes to effectively do interviews, the language level can be eliminatory.

Is this normal? Should we pay attention to language level more than what an employee can bring to a company? Is it better having an American working in France than a Frenchy French?

I already stated how important international mobility is for both companies and employees (cf my former article International Mobility), however I am not sure that all companies do really put enough stress on this management aspect.

When different nationalities work together within a company, it is very very special...in the right way :

• We can feel much more respect between people.

• We help more each other.

• We try to understand the others but also learn from them.

• We leave aside some of our local habits.

What about the language in all this? Nobody cares as long as we understand each other. Can we today pay as much attention as before to language level? Some speak certainly better English than others but it does not mean that they are better in their daily work. Some speak more American than British English, so what ? We should never put aside a candidate only because of its language skills. Indeed if a candidate is interested in joining a company, his motivation is maybe ranking first in term of criteria.

On the other hand, “is my English bad or good” should not be an hindrance for sending once application.

Let's just put aside some of our old habits on languages and see who is in front of us. Lets really pay attention to the people and personality more than on anything else.

One does not speak very well English but he maybe speaks another language which might be very helpful one day for the company, who knows !

I have every day more and more readers telling me that it is a shame that my blog is in French. I should certainly take this as a compliment, however I cannot deny my mother tongue as well as my French community who has been the first to promote this blog.

I nevertheless admit that I should be writting more often in English. I also say it but it would be high time for me now to do it.

So how to proceed?

• Take over some of my previous articles and translate them. You already know that I am against this.

• Find other subjects and publish them in English. Yes but as I told in one of my former post, the subject comes to me in one language or another.

• Teach English to French readers that do not yet. Could take long time.

• Teach French to my English readers, Could be even longer.

• Find another bloger who is going to maintain a blog translating all my articles. Not really relevant.

• Keep on doing what I am currenly doing. This is not going to solve the issue.

• Really endavour to think more in English...here we go !

Ouaouh this is apparently a big dilemna ! What is interesting here is that even in English it is also possible to write to say nothing. What is the interest of this post? None. Just for me to prepare my mind to the change. One article a while is not sufficiant so let's try to squeeze my head in order to be able to deliver more frequently.

Funny article to me as well because this is not the kind of stuff I am usually sharing with you. It is one of this “miscelaneous” article. No content, no purpose, just words. Ok, so now, bear with me, next time I will be ready to write in English to say again something relevant...at least I hope !

Social networking
Social networking has become a real asset in our lifes. We cannot do without it !
Social networking in the US is more direct and everybody knows why to do it. In France, we do it but we do not want to say that we do it. Just because the image is not the same. In the US where entrepreneurship is much broaden, it is just part of everybody's behaviour. US people never says “I do not know you” but “What can I do to help”.

Carrier path
State of mind is much different. Failing is not an issue, never failing is suspicious. In France, carriers, which are following a linear path, are much more appreciated, just because we are still afraid by those who try something different. Changing companies, changing position, changing countries can be seen an unsustainity. So strange to me ! One day a recruiter asked me if I was stable just because during 10 years experience, I worked for 3 different companies in 3 different countries which leads to an average of 3 years for each. Even those working on public sector can have that pace ! I probably just met a strange person (afraid by her own shadow...). Anyway, mobility is not always seen with the same eye. In the US, it is more those working for the same companies for years which is suspicious just because you cannot bring the same dynamism after some time. Bringing practices from other companies is a way of benchmarking which companies appreciate much. You are more allowed to test things.

Language
If we consider the UK and France, it is the same. You will rarely see someone working for a French company which either does not speak any word of French or which do not speak very well the language. The US are more open on the language practice. If you do not speak perfect English, that does not mean that your application will be rejected. They are used to work with foreign people coming from different countries. I do not think that if you do not speak perfect French that you cannot be a very good asset for a company. There are countries in which you can be accepted without speaking a word of the local language just because they see beyond this.