Who is Sylvia Jansen? (Is LinkedIn becoming a Spam Magnet?)

I ask this very pertinent question via the blog post, because, what I know (and I'm only the business owner), is that LinkedIn is apparently actively hiring new staff for my company!  Sylvia is the new manager for !nnovabiz Pty Ltd in the Rotterdam Area, Netherlands.  

I could ask the same question for Robert Adams, CEO of Greater Nashville Area; Harshal Bhati, Engineer of Nagpur, India; Bbb Bhhh, Jiioo (huh?) Greece (oh, maybe it's LinkedIn's rendition of the Greek alphabet); Brian Distler, Boss of Houston, Texas; Harlyn Espanol, Sales Clerk in Philippines; Anas Idlibi, IT Manager in United Arab Emirates; Aljohn Lagne, No (huh?) in Philippines; Ryan M, mmm (doh???) Kitchener, Canada Area; Darshan Mody, Marketing, Australia; Nader Mostafa, No (another one??), Egypt; Bharat Pal, Dr, New Delhi Area, India; Justin Pfa, Huj (huh?), York, Pennsylvania; and Priya Rajesh, Research, India.

All claim on their LinkedIn profiles to be employees of Innovabiz Pty Ltd and hold current positions with my company.  

Well, since LinkedIn apparently is descending into the realms of a "Mickey Mouse" networking organisation and hiding behind privacy protection of scammers, I will have to take things into my own hands!

To all the people named above - you have 24 hours to submit to me your full annual report for the year 2010, complete with Profit and Loss statement, showing how you add value to !nnovabiz Pty Ltd.  If I don't have this report in my inbox by midnight GMT on 23 December 2010, YOU ARE FIRED!    After that, please remove !nnovabiz Pty Ltd from your employment history on your LinkedIn Profile.  Thank you.

 

Oh, and LinkedIn --- if you happen to read this and indeed, give a *&!@, perhaps you might address this situation to achieve a satisfactory outcome.  

The Mindmap Doc

 

LinkedIn Spam

Imagine my surprise when I was notified via LinkedIn of no less than eleven new employees of my company !nnovabiz, 3 based in India, 3 in the USA, 1 in Australia (in addition to the current employees), 2 in the Philippines and 1 in the UAE!

That is going to blow out my payroll costs!  My accountant will definitely not be impressed!!

What is worse, these new employees have names that just don't reflect the right image for our company - Ningning Dong, manager chez, huj, no at, boss (just to name some).  I also have several managers, research, sales, sales clerks, IT managers, Marketing, engineer and CEO.

HELP........ how am I going to keep all these people busy and how am I going to be able to pay them?

Seriously, it would appear that LinkedIn have a spam problem.  I reported the issue to them and was notified that "The appropriate actions have been taken upon the profile."  Unfortunately, it didn't have any effect - the said employees remain in LinkedIn on the company profile.  When I enquired about what the "appropriate actions" were and pointed out that nothing had changed, I was told "Please note, we give members 10 days from our initial inquiry to make the necessary changes to their profile. If we do not receive a reply or see that the necessary changes have been made to the profile, we may take further action on the profile. For privacy reasons, I am unable to disclose the actions that may have been taken upon the profile."

So, let me see if I understand:  anyone can place a LinkedIn entry on MY company's profile without restriction, but when I question that, I'm blocked by "privacy reasons" from protecting myself and my company from fraudulent entries???

C'mon LinkedIn, get your act together!  I thought you were a serious networking site!

The Mindmap Doc

Random Acts of Culture

The Knight Foundation, based in the USA, was established about a year ago to promote informed and engaged communities.  One of their initiatives involves using the arts to engage people and bring communities together.  Recently they have staged a series of "Random Acts of Culture" in public places in US cities.  Here are a couple of examples.

 

 

 

Now this is something I get excited about - surprise in the day, but in a nice way.  And what a great way to support local community talented musicians.  Now they just need to leverage all that viral marketing to help promote (and raise more money for) their foundation and the musicians.

The Mindmap Doc

Bottle Band - Light Entertainment for the Weekend

Now this is a very creative and humorous form of music entertainment!  I wonder about the drinking session to get all those empty bottles!

 

 

Enjoy!

The Mindmap Doc

 

United Breaks Guitars - Viral Marketing par Excellence

Now you may have never heard of Canadian musician, Dave Carroll or his band Sons of Maxwell.  But, after their bad experience with United Airlines, Dave's response has been just brilliant and catapulted him to instant fame and attention. 

Dave's guitar was damaged by United Airlines in transit and their response to his subsequent claim for damages was less than satisfactory.  In a very clever, innovative and quite entertaining use of "internet video marketing", Dave managed to achieve a satisfactory response (albeit belated) from United Airlines and has not only publicized his bad experience, but at the same time, made quite a name for himself, his band and provided opportunities for others (Taylor Guitars, Comedienne "Latriciawhiteagain" and more to come I suspect) to use this experience for their own marketing.

This is just a wonderful example of the power of video marketing through the internet going viral because of:

1. The power of the message
2. The entertainment value (music, parody, personality, professionalism)
3. Social marketing (and yes... I'm caught up in it!

Make sure to watch all 3 videos (see links in You Tube) and also Taylor Guitars response.

 

Google Realtime Search is now live!

Google Realtime Search is now live.  This tool is amazing - showing how Google can index posts within the social network within minutes, if not less.  

Check out Google's demo video of the new features and quick tips on how to use them:

You can access Realtime Search by typing www.google.com/realtime directly into your browser, or clicking the “Updates” link in the left-hand panel of your search results.

I tried out the new search with a current news topic (a disaster of epic proportions, with victims that deserve whatever support we can give!) - Pakistan Floods.

Here is the result - note the "age" of the latest entries.

Check it out, adds to the power of Google Search.

The MindmapDoc

Yet More on Syndicating Blog Posts to the Web

Further to my earlier articles on syndicating blog posts to the web, I have now implemented a more comprehensive system, that has Posterous at its hub.  I am still using twitterfeed and hellotxt to keep Plaxo in the loop, until Posterous includes Plaxo in its services.  Otherwise, all is driven through Posterous, publishing my blog posts as widely as the services that I choose to implement.

Here is the Mind Map illustrating the system: