Is There an Official LinkedIn Group on LinkedIn?

This question may sound confusing, but since there are now more than 260,000 (!) Groups on LinkedIn, maybe there is one that is actually officially affiliated with the site that could be an interesting one to join to learn more about LinkedIn?

I am happy to report that there is at least one official LinkedIn Group that exists.  The catch is that you may (read below for more details) have to be a Group Manager to join, but if you are, I highly recommend that you join the LinkedIn Groups Product Forum.  This is an amazing Group where both LinkedIn employees are actually sharing new features and asking for opinions and advice from LinkedIn users and Group members are suggesting new features for LinkedIn.  I only found about this Group myself from another LinkedIn user a few weeks ago (aah, the power of networking!), but I have already seen some really interesting conversations and learned even more about the way LinkedIn works.  Of course, I joined this Group right after LinkedIn made all of those terrible Group changes which I mention in my How to Complain to LinkedIn? and other posts, so I have seen some pretty passionate conversations from Group managers like me who were very unhappy about the sudden and unannounced changes.

The official description of the Group looks like this: “The LinkedIn Groups Product Forum is a discussion group for anyone who is passionate about LinkedIn Groups and is interested in discussing ideas for improving the product. It’s also a forum for group owners and managers to share ideas and stay in tune with new feature developments from LinkedIn.”  Now, I am a Group Manager, but the wording indicates that you might be able to join even if you are not.  I encourage someone reading this who isn’t a Group Manager to try and join this and report back to us on the results!

The spirit of the forum is innocent enough.  On one side are passionate users who are providing LinkedIn excellent feedback on how they can better their site through either new features or modifications of the existing ones.   On the other side are LinkedIn engineers, obviously excited about the tweaks and new functionality they have provided, asking the Group members for advice and suggestions.  In the short time I have been on the Group and reading the Discussions, I have been introduced to the new Advanced Search functionality which appears when searching for Members within a Group when you are on the Group page, as well as a “LinkedIn Today!” feature which, although I can’t find now, was a two column bar showing the latest news for a certain company that showed up in a LinkedIn Poll in an aesthetically pleasing fashion.  

On the other hand, some of the discussions posted by the members, as well as some of the responses to the LinkedIn comments, makes my sometimes bitter commentary on LinkedIn look like I’m an angel.  There are some people making valid product feature requests in a thoughtful manner, but there are a lot of other people that are telling it like it is, much like I have through this blog, and letting LinkedIn know what the issues are and where its priorities should be.  We can all be thankful that there are a group of passionate members that are going to bat for all of us and trying to make our voices heard!

This really is a great Group to understand the various issues that so many people are having with LinkedIn right now.  But I ask myself why should this Group even exist in the first place?  After all, the real issue here is that LinkedIn 1) needs to create a proper vehicle to obtain functionality requests from a greater portion of its members than just this potentially exclusive Group, 2) needs to test and inform its members, not just this Group, before implementing any changes, and 3) needs to respond to the allegations and comments that people post on the Groups Discussion.  Concerning point #3, it’s like opening up the microphone for everyone to ask questions and then not responding to them.  It almost seems to reiterate the sad fact that LinkedIn really isn’t listening…

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