The following is a transcript provided by futuregen to the WhosYourDaddyshow.com Episode 02 Wednesday Nov 7, 2007. With 12 hours turnaround time, 98.5% accuracy and in a format suitable for blog posting.
Marc:
Welcome to Linkedin Live! This is LinkedIn Anti-prophet Mr Dallas Blue and we’re happy to have you here at the Church of the Cosmic Void. And it’s a Linkedin Live: Who’s Your Daddy Show. I’m Marc Freedman. And we have ..
Heidi:
Priestess Nocturna
Marc:
Ah there she is – the lovely Nocturna. How are you today Heidi?
Heidi:
I’m doing great! Thanks Marc. How are you?
Marc:
I am – I’m terrific if only my LinkedIn account wasn’t suspended!
Heidi:
Oh no not again. They just keep slapping you around. They must enjoy it. Do you…?
Marc:
I’m a bad daddy.
Heidi:
You’re a bad LinkedIn Daddy.
Marc:
Oh I’m bad. Well actually it turns out to be a pretty good lead in to our show next week. Next week we have Arnnei Speiser who is the developer of the software LinkedIn contact manager.
And what LinkedIn contact manager does is it reads in all of the profiles of all of your connections. So it’s pretty spiffy stuff. We will talk about that next week. So I won’t go into it here. But one of the thing that it does is it reads each one of your profiles.
Now of course, if you have ten profiles it’s not a big deal. If you have maybe 15000 profiles, It literally takes hours and LinkedIn’s kind of watching and you know, they have a number of alarms that monitor that kind of activity which can be suspicious -sets off and they’ll freeze your account and once again, I’ve been spanked.
Heidi:
Ow!
Marc:
Ow! And normally I’m the one doing the spanking. So that’s a switch. So in any case, for all of our listeners, welcome. This is our second show. How did our first show go Heidi?
Heidi:
Oh it just had a few little itches here and there that we needed to scratch. It wasn’t so bad. It was a learning tour to our own lovely little world here.
Marc:
Well, it absolutely was. So, let’s put that in the past and I think we scratched all of those itches. And are looking forward- and I first want to thank Heidi.
Heidi is coming here to Dallas. I’m coming to you from wonderful Dallas, Texas. Heidi is going to be coming here to Dallas. So I’m excited about that. That’s December 6th for all of our north Texas listeners. The DallasBlue holiday party and service provider expo will be Thursday December 6th over lunch.
We are going to have a few speakers. It’s going to be a fun event and Heidi, what are you going to be talking on?
Heidi:
I think I’m going to engage you in some Laughter Yoga and a little bit of understanding how Laughter Yoga has a place in the workplace and corporate surroundings.
Marc:
And are you going to be demonstrating some poses and stretches for us?
Heidi:
There are no poses and stretches in Laughter Yoga. Laughter Yoga is – the exercise is Laughter. So you’re exercising your gut, your heart, your lungs, your abdominal muscles and your face, of course.
So it’s laughter as an exercise. There is no yoga stretches or poses or any reason for us to bring a mat or wear special clothing.
Marc:
Oh darn, I have to keep my pants on.
Heidi:
Yeah well, you can, you know, you don’t have to.
Marc:
Alright. Well again that’s December 6th in Dallas if anyone happens to be from Dallas in our calling audience. Well good one of our features on our show is our LinkedIn Rant and you know, call me “Mad Dog”. I call myself the Anti-prophet. But some of the things that LinkedIn does that I think just exceeds the bounds of good corporate behaviour and I mentioned this a little bit in the last show- and I have more evidence of this – that I frankly find disturbing.
So as we say on our webpage which is whosyourdaddyshow.com, we’re one of their greatest supporters. But we’re also one of their greatest critics and you know, “don’t drink too much of that LinkedIn cool-aid” is part of our motto here at whosyourdaddy.
LinkedIn put out an update a few weeks ago in October and some of it – looks like it was done with relatively little customer interaction. Relatively little testing and for a network the size of – with 50 million members- you’d just expect more and it’s really been disappointing.
And I don’t know. I mean one of the things that really bugs me is as someone who teaches LinkedIn seminars and tele-seminars, I talked about managing your LinkedIn introductions.
LinkedIn limits you to five if you have a new – if you have a basic free account. If you have a business account like I do, you have 15. And that’s the only way to reach out to people. It’s a precious commodity and as a result you have to carefully manage it.
And what they did with this new release is you can’t find which introductions you’ve sent. And so if you go to their “Send Introductions Page” you’ll see a list of kinds of crap. If you’re forwarding you know, 75 introductions a week like I do, plus you’re sending out another 15 a week, there’s just no way to manage it.
I mean you used to be able to have a way where you could only look at the “Sent Introductions” that you had AND be able to filter that for example, to find out – look at the ones that are old and which ones are pending, so it made it a snap to be able to manage your introductions.
Now there is no filtering. It includes your forwarded introductions, there’s just no way in the world to manage it other than to hunt and peck through a few pages worth of introductions!
Now if that doesn’t get you pissed off enough, and it certainly was – it was just the tip of the iceberg for me- what happens when you send a group introduction, or an open link introduction?
You know where they put those Heidi?
Heidi:
No, I don’t.
Marc:
Well they certainly don’t put them in your “Send Introductions” – where you’d think they’d find them! They are actually in your “InMail” folder. So if look you have to look at your “Sent InMails” and that’s where those are hiding.
And so now, not only do you have to hunt and peck at manual pages and see “Okay, is this a four page introduction, is this a send introduction?” And the only way to determine that is if you’re smart enough to use a different subject for -or the same subject for all the ones you’re sending to discriminate them.
Now you also have to go to the “InMail” folder to look at the “Sent Introductions” and your “Open Link Introductions”. So I did that and I had 15. And I found some were missing and I found them there. And if that wasn’t enough, if you’re managing them- the whole point about managing them is to be able to withdraw them.
Because if they have been out for a week or two weeks or three weeks, obviously that one ain’t being answered and so you’d want to withdraw it and reuse it- whether you send it to the same person or not.
Well in this new update if you – check it out- go to your “Sent InMails” page, look at the “Open link” and “Group Introductions” that you’ve sent and you can’t withdraw them. So that’s a huge bug.
And from my perspective, they are cheating me and I’ve asked two times for an explanation and a refund of my service fee that I pay. Because I’m paying for 15 introductions and if I can’t withdraw them, I can’t use them. I haven’t heard anything from LinkedIn.
So that’s what’s pissing me off today. What about you Heidi?
Heidi:
Well right now there’s absolutely nothing in the world that’s pissing me off. But if I have to say something- do I have to say something about LinkedIn that pisses me off right now?
Marc:
Sure! Absolute -That’s part of the show where we’re at right now.
Heidi:
Well this show is actually contributing a lot to what used to – previously pissed me off at LinkedIn was that it was so static. But this show is an example of how un-static it’s becoming and how much more fluid and much more smoothly we can network and connect with people on LinkedIn.
Previously it was just a – I wouldn’t- basically as far as I was concerned. I’m loving this. This is a great first step. This show is – and I think what they are going to do is to offer you a tremendous job with LinkedIn. Don’t you think Marc?
Marc:
Well I’ve invited a lot of LinkedIn folks from management staff to listen. Whether or not they do is up to them. They are a pretty arrogant bunch and so it’s part of our job to slap those suckers. You know,..
Heidi:
That comes through the portal -the arrogance. And I think …
Marc:
Why thank you. Why thank you!
Heidi:
Not YOUR arrogance. THEIR arrogance.
Marc:
THEIR arrogance. Well it does and it has forced a lot of people including myself to invest time in help and support and resources to try to educate people about how to use the system and to help them become better networkers.
I want to invite our listeners and callers to call in right now. We’re going to have a few opportunities during the show for callers to call in. Right now is one of those times, and if you’re using your NOWLIVE media player, there’s a little button there that says “Call the show” and if you click on that, it will give you a local phone access number.
You can even use Googletalk to call in. (Nar) from NowLive is our wonderful screener and he’ll be able to take your call and let us know about you.
A little bit latter in the show we have Vera Newman and I’ve known Vera for a few years and she is going to tell us a little bit about Nest Egg Studios. So it’s a massive – we like massive things- it’s a massively online virtual game for adults. And we are all adults here aren’t we?
Heidi:
That depends on how you define adults I suppose.
Marc:
So for the- our bank of operators are waiting for your calls – so feel free to call in to the show. And I know Vera’s holding if we don’t have anyone calling in at the moment, we’ll just talk to Vera.
After our interview with Vera we’ll also have five or ten minutes of the show or so. We also will open the phone lines to your questions, your comments about the show- about LinkedIn and any other questions, suggestions, or recommendations you have for online networking.
Heidi:
We have a general question from one of the general participants in the chat room at the moment. He’s asking a general question to everyone – what do you use LinkedIn for?
That’s (Jeff Saturday) Hello Jeff. Thanks for the question.
Marc:
Well Jeff do you have a few hours? What do you use LinkedIn for?
LinkedIn is for whatever you need to use it for. And actually I think it’s a terrific question, because so many people get involved with LinkedIn and they think it’s like a Myspace. It’s a friendster. It’s just a place to hang out.
And they don’t have any direction. They don’t have a plan. Look LinkedIn is for business and you’ve got to treat it like a business. So whatever it is you need to do. You know, get that plan, have that objective.
If you’re looking for a job. You know, create a job search plan and how do you use LinkedIn to do that? You target industries. You target executives you know, at companies and industries you target networkers who are in your profession and so on.
So It can help you find the job. It can help you land candidates. You can use it on a targeted basis to find professionals. For business partners, for customers if you’re selling in b2b to other businesses. So a myriad number of purposes but if you’re going to ask me what LinkedIn is for, I’m going to ask you back – What do YOU need to use it for? How can you help your business?
And you know, think about that and we can advance that conversation some.
Heidi, how do you use LinkedIn?
Heidi:
I definitely use it for a lot of marketing ideas. I love to get the questions and find out what other people are learning and then sort of surrogate myself onto that.
I also do it for a lot of ideas for how I’m going to connect to people. Some people are so innovative about how they connect on LinkedIn. I tend to be – to make sure that all of my connections are very personal. And that I send – I don’t use the template that they give us to connect with people. I actually make a more personal connection. And send something with a little bit more information.
I examined their profile a little closely. Find out what we have in common. What interest that they have that interest me. Where I feel I can learn from them. How best we can serve one another if we do connect etcetera. Things like that. I think it’s a wonderful way to connect on a personal level as well as the professional level.
Marc:
Okay terrific. And let me give – I mean if you go to our wiki. That’s MyLink Wiki.com (http://linkedin.pbwiki.com/MyLinkWiki) There are literally are hundreds of pages about LinkedIn.
One of them is on LinkedIn uses and if you search for the word “uses” you’ll find that. And you know, there’s probably 50 to 100 different uses that we have there in terms of ways to profitably use LinkedIn.
For my own local networking business, Dallasblue. I use it to target top Dallas networkers. And I’ve been toying that for a few years now, so if you were to search on Dallas and sorted on number of connections, you’d find that probably 70-80% of all top LinkedIn networkers are part of the DallasBlue LinkedIn group – if not already connected to me.
And so that’s the interesting part about that is that illustrates both the positive and the negative of LinkedIn. It’s not a way to contact a lot of people in kind of a mass impersonal way.
But on the other hand it’s ideal if you need to contact people on a personal individual basis – whether you contact them directly or using personal referrals.
And with that I want to introduce our guest. Vera Newman is CEO and founder of Nest Egg Studios. And our high priestess Heidi had talked about surrogates. And so I think Vera knows a little bit about surrogates.
Nest Egg Studios is an innovative, independent start-up multimedia entertainment studio. They have a mission to revolutionize the MMO. I think that’s the massively online player games or something like that.
An online media markets by creating fun, exhilarating, sophisticated games and online media for the mature female consumer. And I love mature female consumers. So Heidi tell us a little bit about Nest Egg Studios.
Heidi:
Vera? You mean Vera?
Marc:
That’s right Vera.
Heidi:
Welcome to the show Vera.
Vera:
Well Nest Egg Studio was started a few years ago from an idea that adult gamers could play together in an environment that did not harbour themes and that they could express themselves more than they do now in traditional online games.
Nest Egg Studio is right now working on a game called “Heavenly Bodies Riffed Galaxy”. And it’s a modern romance-action game online. It’s (transient) and it utilizes new gaming concepts- mythologies. And it’s focusing on the needs of adults with an emphasis on the female audience.
Marc:
Now are guys allowed in “Heavenly Bodies”?
Vera:
Oh yes, it’s a game geared towards adults. But the fact that we’re trying to make this more sophisticated for also female gamers is because it’s an untapped market.
And you have – I would say about 42% of all online gamers are women. And those ages range from 18 to 60. So you have this really large gap in gaming that’s not being addressed. And that’s what Nest Egg Studio is here for- to address that gap.
Marc:
I just think it’s a slick marketing gimmick. It’s like going into a bar and if you’re the proprietor of the bar, all you’ve got to do is to bring in all the hot babes. And you know the guys are going to come follow.
Tell me the truth Vera, isn’t that the underground, secret, hidden marketing strategy there? If you bring in the chips, the guys will follow…
I’m a marketeer. I dig that. I’m with you.
Vera:
Well, I don’t know whether it’s a marketing you know, strategy. In a way it is, but it really is a significant thing in gaming that women are there and they are not being paid attention to.
Whether you know, it’s that you know, “get in the bar free”, because you know, we’re women and then have to pay a dollar at the door that’s not really the concept.
But you know, I do believe that where women go, men you know follow. So in a sense sometimes. In a sense we really want to open up doors to allow people to see that. Men are not the only ones playing these games.
So that’s why we are trying to focus on the female audience a little bit more.
Marc:
Well, Vera tell us a little bit about your experience with LinkedIn. How long have you been a LinkedIn member? How many connections do you have? And has it ever done a God-damn thing for you honey?
Vera:
Well you know what? It has really helped Nest Egg Studios. I started using LinkedIn about I would say mid 2005 maybe earlier than that. And at first I was getting sent, you know, high five, Myspace. Connect with me here, connect with me there.
I never really thought about LinkedIn as being an opportunity at first. Because I thought it was just another place that will allow me to connect to. At that time I was on Ryze (http://www.ryze.com/) the other business network. And I didn’t really appreciate it too much.
I didn’t like the layouts. I didn’t like you know, the way that It worked. I found LinkedIn again and I thought “Oh this is a pretty nice layout”. And I’m all for candy.
You know, I like eye candy. I like things to be organized a little bit. So I started using it. I started inviting all my friends you know, and then I realised that it was a really good business tool if I you know, use it for the things that I needed for my company.
And I have found all my executives, all my you know, board and executives for my companies through LinkedIn. So it has helped me in that respect. As far as its functionality, sometimes I’m not very happy with it. So I have my periods of love and hate.
I will use it sometimes and other times I will forget about it. And then I’ll come back to it.
Marc:
Vera, you have mentioned – were you referring to Ryze the other online network?
Vera:
Yeah. Yes.
Marc:
Okay, now that’s – I actually was a bit Ryze user. This was probably four, five years ago, before LinkedIn got hot and I similarly had the same experience where when I first checked into LinkedIn.
It didn’t seem ready for primetime in terms of the size of the network and so I continued on Ryze which really isn’t a corporate oriented site. But I checked back at LinkedIn a few months later and it definitely seemed to be ready for prime time – reached critical mass. And that is when I joined LinkedIn pretty early on.
So that’s very interesting. I mean you‘ve found your executives on LinkedIn. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re…
Vera:
Yes I am.
Marc:
You’re trying to get strategic partners. You’re getting business advisers. You’re trying to find (me). I mean are you using LinkedIn to help you – to contact venture capitalist? And…
Vera:
Yes I am. Yes I do. And you know it’s a very challenging but rewarding process to be able to connect to people that you didn’t even know that you had a connection to- through somebody else.
I’ve you know, at first- like you asked me how many I have- Oh my God! I have over a 1700. A little over 1700 but the people that I connect with the most are those within my industry.
And good friends that I’ve had for several years in business and through them I usually do most of my networking. It’s very rare that I will go to someone that I don’t know. I’d try not to you know, I’d try not to use it- going thru someone I haven’t really had time to sit down, talked with, get to know.
I find it kind of hard to just send you know referral thru someone that doesn’t really know anything about me or what it is I’m trying to do. So that can be a bit of a challenge specially when you’re trying to connect to someone else. You know, you really have to speak with.
I do like to network you know, a little bit.
Marc:
Vera, we have a question from our audience. The question is “How old do you have to be join Heavenly Bodies?”
Vera:
Well, it really depends on what country you’re in. We’re going to market the game within the US. But we definitely want to expand to the Asian market. There are many good reasons for that. But within the US, it would be 18 plus. Adults 18.
In other countries, it might be older -21 or more. So you know, it’s – it really depends on the laws and the restrictions of where you live in your country.
Marc:
(Jeff) Saturday asks “Is the MMO reality based sci-fi or fantasy?”
Vera:
It (transient) meaning that it encompasses all of those. But you would probably call it modern -a modern futuristic game. Not necessarily sci-fi but definitely a modern fantasy based games.
Marc:
Now is this like those games where I have a choice between you know, being the stud that I am or I could be you know, a girl? Or I could be, or you know, most importantly can I just be a furry animal?
Vera:
You can be whatever you want to be! That’s the point of playing game is to either escape or be who really want to be in another form. There’s two types of players. I call them realist and escapist.
And escapist want to get away from the daily work grind and just be whoever they feel they want to be within the game world.
Whereas others who are realists just play themselves. So it really is up to the player. And you know, they can either customize the characters to look like them or they can be that furry animal.
Marc:
Well Vera, you’ve been paying a lot of attention, kind of avoiding the questions in everyone’s mind you know, just one of those dirty sex games isn’t it where you can have simulated sex?
Heidi:
Simulated sex.
Marc:
Talk to us a little bit about you know, maybe sex?
Vera:
Well you know, I don’t feel there’s a problem with sex per se. I think there’s a lot of stigma that goes into producing something that’s for adults. We in the western world think of “adults” as equals porn.
When you have entertainment that’s meant for adults it can encompass anything from you know, social political viewpoints, (and) games you know, where players are (paired) against each other to solve problems.
And there can be sexual relations, romance and things of that nature. I think if you look you know, as like say (Flash) HBO at night whereas gaming world, you’ll find that there’s a lot of you know, not necessarily you know, this world where everybody is going to have sex all the times. It’s going to be a gambit.
You’re going to have a player base that’s going to want to disengage in the sexual act. Where you’re going to have another demographic wanting to engage in the romance, the emotions and trying to gauge and trying to have those types of adult interaction.
So you know, we’re trying not to focus so much on the aspect that has sexual content. You have other games like Conan coming out where players can engage in sexual acts. But of course it’s implied.
We want to make sure that because it’s says “for adults” that we don’t – (suffice it to ) say “well it’s implied”. We want them to actually enjoy their gaming experience.
Heidi:
Vera, if lets say that – alright you’re the original founder of this organisation, yes?
Vera:
Yes I am.
Heidi:
Okay. What was your inspiration? You were seeking online sex partners and you went to make a game out of it? ….
Vera:
(Laughing) Do we have to get that personal?
Heidi:
(Unintelligible) the participants here have this question. This isn’t my question. This is my rendition of their question.
Vera:
Okay.
Heidi:
It’s Mr (Meer) and (Jeff) Saturday have the question.
Vera:
Okay. I have been playing online games since – for about ten years. The first game I played was Ultima Online. And it was a very open based massive multiplayer game. The first I would say.
And in that game, I found an outlet to express myself who I really you know, wanted to be and I was the poet, swordswoman/you know mage. And I ended up reciting poetry near the blacksmith. And there was a guy that liked when I recited poetry.
And we started talking, getting to know each other and then endgame ended just being a relationship between the two avatars. And they ended up getting married in the game.
And through that process there were emotions and there were real feelings and there were things that we tried to express but we really couldn’t because of the game mechanics.
And yes that’s cyber sex and those are you know, emotions and those are poetry and those are gifs that he would send. And one of the best things and worst things that happened to us right after we got “married” is that another player liked my character and then after the wedding, he ended up with a bunch of his friends – started a war at our door.
And it was the most romantic thing and it’s weird but it was the most romantic thing and again, the game mechanics didn’t really allow for that. But the players made the game the way that it was.
Because they added in their personality. They added in what – the actions that they want to do. And I thought, well, how funny no one’s trying to do this. No one’s trying to add these elements to these worlds where basically people you know, make the conversion, move it beyond what it is.
So, that’s where the – the start of Heavenly Bodies where I started writing and thinking of the things that would make these games better. Now, did you have any other questions that I’m – sorry, I must have not heard everything you’ve said.
Heidi:
No, they were just asking what your inspiration was and I think it just sounds like – we’re fulfilling cybersex? (Laughter)
Vera:
I’m sorry, I couldn’t – I can’t – I couldn’t hear you.
Heidi:
Well, they were asking what your inspiration was. And I think you answered that. You were looking for the most fulfilling cybersex.
Vera:
Okay. (Laughs)
Heidi:
And cyber romance…
Vera:
Not just fulfilling cybersex but the mechanics of being a player – of being a – they are restricted to the way that you play the game – it’s very hack and slash. It’s going out and doing quests.
But there’s that social aspect that’s lost sometimes players need that social aspect. If, you know a game allowed for say, secret admirers or sending flowers or going on dates or speed dating or connecting with other players in different ways other than just cybersex or whatever, it – you know it would be great. It would be fun.
It would be a little bit more than just trying to save the world every five seconds while you’re in the game. There are – these players make the game more than what it is because of their community so if you add those types of mechanics – community mechanics, allowing people to socialize on different levels, you will make a better game experience.
That’s what we believe at Nest Egg Studios so no, it’s not about the cybersex though that’s fun. But it’s also about being able to connect with someone because you share those same interests because you want to be able to go out and protect each other and have fun with your friends and do lots of different things.
That’s what that’s about. This is why I really want to start Nest Egg Studios. So, yes.
Marc:
Vera, have you already taken Heidi’s laughter yoga course?
Vera:
(Laughter) No. I naturally laugh all the time, so, yeah that’s just me. It’s not really, you know, it’s these cheeks I have. If you’ve ever seen my picture you’ll know what I’m talking about. So…
Marc:
Oh Vera, I…
Vera:
(And the dimple), you know
Marc:
Vera, I want to thank you. You’ve been a terrific sport while we’ve learned about Nest Egg Studios. Is there a – is your service, Heavenly Bodies, already launched and available?
Vera:
No, not yet. We’re still working on developing the game’s prototype. We’re working on right now a online networking site to host the game and it’s fan-based. We have over 3,000 fans and growing. So, we’re really, really working hard on getting things out to the public.
Marc:
Well, very good. I encourage all our listeners to do a search for Vera Newman or probably the easiest might be “Nest Egg”, two words and in parentheses, on LinkedIn, you’ll find her photo, you’ll find her full profile and she has 500 plus connections. Exactly, how many is that, Vera?
Vera:
1,700 plus.
Marc:
Okay. So, she has been at it for a while. And also…
Vera:
Yeah. Three years.
Marc:
There’s also a link to Nest Egg Studios and she publishes her email address so she invites your LinkedIn invitation. Isn’t that right, Vera?
Vera:
Yes, I do.
Marc:
Never had an invitation from a guy that you’ve turned down?
Vera:
(Laughs) I’m not going to say anything about that.
Marc:
And Vera, do let us know when – about your progress in terms of landing money or developing your product. We’d love to have you back on LinkedIn Live: Who’s Your Daddy. And well, thank you so much.
Vera:
Thank you. Have a nice day.
Marc:
And, we’re going to play a little music from Michael Dawson right now and then we’ll take your questions and wrap up the show.
(Music)
Heidi:
Thank you so much for being here, Vera. It’s been great. And your laugh is () wonderful.
Marc:
Well, very good. We’re back with LinkedIn Live: Who’s Your Daddy and that was Vera Newman with Nest Egg Studios who was our featured guest for today with a terrific game that she’s developing called Heavenly Bodies, the Riffed Galaxy – a modern romance online game and they are looking for moneyed investors and you know you can have sex. Super.
So, any – we’re open now to your calls. We’re open to your questions, your suggestions, anything you want to say about LinkedIn because we’re all about what’s new and interesting about LinkedIn and we’ll be taking your chat as well as your calls.
Heidi:
You know I have a question, Marc.
Marc:
Sure.
Heidi:
I have a question, Marc. That’s – I like that.
(Laughter)
Heidi:
I want to know about dating on LinkedIn just as an aside here. If anyone – since we’ve just been talking quite a bit about cybersex and dating and that kind of thing through these websites. I’m curious how many people who are online with us now have actually dated through the site, met their own LinkedIn babe or boy. A curious question.
Marc:
Well, that sounds hot. That might have been kind of hard since they just added photos a few weeks ago.
Heidi:
They could have dated without.
Marc:
Yeah.
Heidi:
One of the callers has mentioned this is a good topic. So, thanks, (mynix).
Marc:
Yeah, yeah, you know that’s an interesting question. I’m in the hinterlands of Dallas and I would think where you are Heidi, in New Orleans, it might be somewhat similar.
What I find here is we’re about five to ten years behind the time in terms of what’s on the leading edge of online stuff that you typically find in New York and Boston and the Bay area and LA.
And even just for regular online dating sites, I didn’t see that taking off here in Dallas until, oh my, you know late ‘90s or so. So, we’re a little bit slow to find people.
Do you see that as well in New Orleans?
Heidi:
Yeah. Actually and things down here are even a bit more slow because of the recovery process. It’s far from complete and so a lot of people still haven’t returned yet and much more focused on actually the bricks and mortar of their buildings and their businesses right now then so much their online networking work. But it’s coming back.
Marc:
Well, that’s – you know I think part of the challenge with dating on LinkedIn is it’s a place to do business. So, it’s – I’m sure given that there are 15 million members, a few of them have made contact on a business basis and it has progressed into a personal relationship. I’ve actually found the reverse.
I know of a few instances where people have made contact on a dating site and actually brought that on onto LinkedIn through – because they developed a business relationship. So, I’m curious to hear if it’s gone the other way.
What do you think? Should we develop a dating website for LinkedIn members?
Heidi:
LinkedIn babes and boys connect? Something like that.
Marc:
That’s an interesting idea.
Heidi:
What about – once you mentioned something about the LinkedIn calendar you were talking about last week, Marc?
Marc:
Well,…
Heidi:
And the nominations we want to take.
Marc:
Well, thank you.
One of our programs that – one of our segments that we have on LinkedIn live, whosyourdaddy is LinkedIn babes and boys. So, this is to celebrate the fact that now photos are now being featured on LinkedIn.
Now, granted, you know they’re the size of, oh you know, a thimble and you need a magnifying glass to see it especially if you’re as old as I am. But I think it’s terrific and oh only about four years overdue that they provided this. Facebook has photos and they’re larger and you can add multiple photos. So, that’s a lot more fun.
And our program, we’re promoting the more photogenic among us and what I’d like to do is to develop a calendar for – of LinkedIn babes or LinkedIn boys or both for people who are LinkedIn members who are proud to – if they got it, they’re going to flaunt it.
And we’ll do this for charity and make some money, sell a few calendars and do some good for the community and have fun at the same time.
So, last week, we featured Sharon Dawn and here’s Sharon’s photo and Sharon’s actually in Australia and she was part of an effort in Australia for Australian IT babes and they put together their own calendar and I thought that was such a terrific idea.
Let’s do the same. So, if you have nominations, let us know. Go to our website and contact myself – that’s linkedindaddyshow.com or marc@dallasblue.com and we’ll share your nominations over this program over the next few weeks and months and we’d love to get the interviewees or rather the nominated people on the show.
They can talk to us about how they’re using LinkedIn and you know, we’ll run a vote and we’ll all have a good time.
Heidi:
Well, like I was saying last week, I wanted to also include people that you feel are a great strong connector and have a lot to offer on LinkedIn. They may not be fabulously sexy or particularly photogenic. But my contribution to this is to nominate them. They have a great sparkle and there’s lots of reasons why you wanted to connect with them. They’re totally worth the nomination.
Marc:
Well, yeah, that could be a third calendar. I think – you know, the wonderful people LinkedIn, there are so many people doing so many good things for LinkedIn and the community here in terms of education and training and helping people.
And you know, it’s all about pay it forward and so much of what you see in terms of people managing and running forums and websites and even just forwarding your connections, all of that’s unpaid and you know, people are doing it because they genuinely want to help and the one thing that’s really impressed me about LinkedIn is, LinkedIn from the corporate side – you know, I think is tremendous issues and problems and we talked about their myopia and their arrogance.
But you have to put that aside and look at the people in the community here. You know the amount of time, the effort, the goodwill and the help that they provide all of this – all of us to build this community to be able to forward your connections, to help people who are looking for jobs, is just tremendous.
And I’m just frankly surprised that in the past four years, you know, I joined LinkedIn when it was probably – had hundreds of thousands of members and now it has 15 million. And I’m just really impressed that you know that goodwill really hasn’t gone down. It’s still a terrific community and people are out there to help.
Heidi:
Absolutely. I have to agree. There are always people willing to answer questions and to reach out and offer suggestions or advice. It’s been a great community and to become a part of. I think I’ve been on for four years.
I’ve enjoyed it every step of the way.
Marc:
Well, it is and the LinkedIn life really more is about celebrating the LinkedIn users and LinkedIn spirit and you know not necessarily the bad guys in the bay area who screw with us.
So, we do our best to – despite those difficulties and those troubles and even though my rant today was about the difficulty in terms of managing your introductions, that’s all on the corporate side and really not about the users.
And you know maybe on another show, you know we’ll look about doing the segment to help celebrate the users. Many of the featured guests that we bring on each week you know are about those people who really give and I mention (Arnie Spicer) who’s going to be on next week. And he’s developed software that’s very valuable and very useful. And how much does he charge for that software? Zip, nada, nothing.
You know, he is contributing his time to develop a terrific resource and not expecting anything in return.
Another person is Christian Mayaud and Christian will be on our show, I believe, November 28th. And Christian is the founder of LinkedIn Lions which is LinkedIn open networkers and there’s a Yahoo Group. His website at the Metanetworkers.com where he has established the LinkedIn lair for open networkers define one another.
And we’ll be profiling you know basically LinkedIn heroes like that over the coming weeks and months. And I hope all of our readers and listeners and podcasters, downloaders stay with us and we’re always open to your recommendations and nominations for who your LinkedIn heroes are. We’d love to have them on the show.
Heidi:
Marc, I want to introduce one of our callers right now. She’s not calling in to – she’s listening. She’s got her own ad agency in Beirut Lebanon. And she’s currently listening, (Tykie). She’s a fantastic graphic artist and has a wonderful firm on her own in Beirut.
So, anybody has any interest and needs some graphic design work and they want to put some interest and some money and some support into Beirut, she’d be the one to get in touch with.
Marc:
Well, that’s terrific and I want to remind our listeners and our chatters. We have a Yahoo group so to find the Yahoo Group, just go to whosyourdaddyshow.com and you’ll find the link there and we’ll use that to talk about the show and by all means introduce yourself and (Ticky), is it (Ticky) or (Tykie)?
Heidi:
(Tykie).
Marc:
(Tykie), (Tykie). So, that’s a great forum for (Tykie) and our other listeners and callers and chatters to introduce themselves to our small but growing community. You know we started out with two listeners yesterday and I think we’re up to four today so if we just keep doubling that, we’re going to get pretty large in, oh, about three years.
Heidi:
Oh, we have 15. We have 15 today and our max moment, we actually did. A bright shining happy 15.
Marc:
Okay. Well, I think that tops last week and…
Heidi:
Yes.
Marc:
… although that doesn’t include people just playing the audio stream or podcasting or downloading. So,…
Heidi:
Exactly.
Marc:
… you know, it’s – it is definitely looking up. Well, I want to thank you. I’m looking at the clock now and our show is just about over. Again, I want to thank Vera Newman, CEO of Nest Egg Studios who’s our special guest. You can continue the conversation and talk back to us at our Yahoo Group through the week. We’re going to be on most Wednesdays.
So we have a show next Wednesday. Arnnei Speiser, the developer of LinkedIn Contact Manager will be on. We’re going to be off the week of Thanksgiving for those of you in the United States. And we’ll be back at the end of November and then have more shows in December. So, I want to thank you all for joining us.
Remember , network but don’t network too much because LinkedIn frowns on that and oh, you know, they suspend accounts of people like yours truly if you’re a little bit too serious about how you use LinkedIn and networking.
And, well, thank you so much for being with us Heidi.
Heidi:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Marc.
Marc:
And, you know, Heidi and I are going to be at the Comedy Store in Paramas, New Jersey, December 13th.
Heidi:
That’s right.
Marc:
Come on down.
Heidi:
That’s lovely Paramas.
Marc:
Heidi’s going to be in her little spandex outfit showing us a few – like Yoga poses. She’s hot!
Heidi:
That’s right.
Marc:
And – but she definitely is going to be in Dallas, December 6th. So,..
Heidi:
Yes!
Marc:
… thank you so much. We are going to see you next week and you know, get out there and support your LinkedIn community.
Heidi:
Everyone, thank you so much for coming. This has been great.