Should LinkedIn Users Work for LinkedIn for Free?

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Should LinkedIn Users Work for LinkedIn for Free?

You may have missed it, but there has been a recent uproar in the freelance translator community regarding a request that they saw from LinkedIn asking them, in essence, to work for LinkedIn for free. In some ways, LinkedIn has always been asking its users to volunteer their time, asking its users to report spam, flag profile pictures, report on “Questions” that should not be on the Answers board, flag groups, etc. It makes one wonder how much the average LinkedIn user should work for free on behalf of a for-profit company.

Let’s take a closer look at the translator issue.

LinkedIn released a blog post recently that informed the world that they are trying to make their platform more localized for their 20+ million international users by proceeding forward in translating the site into many languages. I think that all LinkedIn users should applaud this, and I am looking forward specifically to seeing Japanese and Chinese versions made available in the near future.

As you can read on the LinkedIn blog post, LinkedIn directly contacted 12,000 professionals in the translation field that were already LinkedIn members asking for their advice on how to go about doing this. The article states that thousands of people did reply, and made note that 38% of those that responded would do some translation work so that they can put it on their resume.

I didn’t think much of the above blog post at the time, but now that I reflect on it, LinkedIn is treating their users as if it is an open community and that everyone is working on some sort of collaborative open source project. However, LinkedIn from my understanding is not an open source software project and it is not a non-profit organization either. If a profitable business was going to translate their site, wouldn’t they just hire a reputable localization company and then just execute on it? Why can’t LinkedIn just do the same?

The article that first mentioned the uproar took this idea further, and I quote from their website:

Professional translators balked at the request from LinkedIn, posting numerous comments that boil down to a single question, “Why should I work for free, especially for a for-profit company?” The translators’ dismay at the situation even led to the formation of a new LinkedIn Group,Translators Against Crowdsourcing for Commercial Business. Since its formation three days ago, the group has attracted 225 members. Why are so many people up in arms? We see three reasons: [I list the first one below]

Most people don’t value what translators do. Freelance translators work tirelessly to dispel the myth that any person who speaks two languages can be a translator. Yet, this is the attitude they face on a near-daily basis. When non-professionals do work for free, it undermines the very profession that freelancers have struggled to build. The job is so oft-misunderstood that translators frequently hear comments like, “Oh, my sister took some French in high school… I bet she’d be a great translator!” This is akin to telling your doctor, “I took a biology class once… I bet I’d be great at your job!” Yet, it is this unfortunate and inaccurate perception that translators constantly face — and wish to erase.

Many loyal and frequent “power” LinkedIn users are also wondering why they personally have to root out users who spam them as well as flag out irrelevant questions on the Answers board. All of these issues, including the translation issue, seem to hint that LinkedIn would rather have its users do the work for them for free. I think that LinkedIn users sincerely appreciate the time and effort that has been put in to develop this awesome social networking platform, but as LinkedIn becomes more profitable, more people will start questioning why LinkedIn doesn’t fund more of these initiatives themselves.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda Steven Burda, MBA

I acted as PR for Linkedin for many years, and still do… for free.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda Steven Burda, MBA

I acted as PR for Linkedin for many years, and still do… for free.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda Steven Burda, MBA

“LinkedIn directly contacted 12,000 professionals in the translation field that were already LinkedIn members asking for their advice on how to go about doing this” — wait a second — isn’t this unsolicited email/contact (aka, spam?!) Did they send InMail, Introduction or… do they personally know and trust those 12,000 professionals?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda Steven Burda, MBA

“LinkedIn directly contacted 12,000 professionals in the translation field that were already LinkedIn members asking for their advice on how to go about doing this” — wait a second — isn’t this unsolicited email/contact (aka, spam?!) Did they send InMail, Introduction or… do they personally know and trust those 12,000 professionals?
Neal Schaffer

You are too funny Steven!
Neal Schaffer

You are too funny Steven!
Neal Schaffer

Yes, Steven, we are all acting as PR and evangelizing the LinkedIn platform. Even though (as well as yourself) can sometimes be critical of LinkedIn, we are actually showing our love and loyalty for the platform and hoping that LinkedIn can make itself an even better one by responding to some of our user requests.
Neal Schaffer

Yes, Steven, we are all acting as PR and evangelizing the LinkedIn platform. Even though (as well as yourself) can sometimes be critical of LinkedIn, we are actually showing our love and loyalty for the platform and hoping that LinkedIn can make itself an even better one by responding to some of our user requests.
Anonymous

The use of Open Source in this article is a little misleading, as by definition the source would be open to everyone and that it would be placed back into the wild for anyone to reuse for any purpose. I would consider this more of a Common Community Project.

Whilst this project is a good idea to get the community involved, one area that LinkedIn may have been overlooked is the quality of translations & the time trade off of monitoring, maintaining, amending submissions.

Hopefully LinkedIn will reward the submitted translations that qualify, whether this be monetary or as attribution on their site.
http://twitter.com/naesk Sean Kelly

The use of Open Source in this article is a little misleading, as by definition the source would be open to everyone and that it would be placed back into the wild for anyone to reuse for any purpose. I would consider this more of a Common Community Project.

Whilst this project is a good idea to get the community involved, one area that LinkedIn may have been overlooked is the quality of translations & the time trade off of monitoring, maintaining, amending submissions.

Hopefully LinkedIn will reward the submitted translations that qualify, whether this be monetary or as attribution on their site.
Neal Schaffer

Hi Sean,

Thank you for your comment and thank you for the Open Source vs. Common Community Project clarification.

You bring up a good point of who will be monitoring the quality of those translations. But, more importantly, will they be properly compensated for their work.

I applaud LinkedIn for wanting to get the opinions of those in their community before embarking on this journey. I am similar in that, when I have new business to give, I like to give it to someone in my LinkedIn network. And that is what I hope LinkedIn does as well, giving real and fair renumeration for those that help them in localizing their site.

- Neal
Neal Schaffer

Hi Sean,

Thank you for your comment and thank you for the Open Source vs. Common Community Project clarification.

You bring up a good point of who will be monitoring the quality of those translations. But, more importantly, will they be properly compensated for their work.

I applaud LinkedIn for wanting to get the opinions of those in their community before embarking on this journey. I am similar in that, when I have new business to give, I like to give it to someone in my LinkedIn network. And that is what I hope LinkedIn does as well, giving real and fair renumeration for those that help them in localizing their site.

- Neal
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dianawei Diana

Interesting. I can ask my friend who works at LinkedIn if you like.

Anywho, if its free work they should totally make a game up for users to engage to freely work for them……A great example is Google’s Image Labeler game.

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

Actually really fun. That and all the people playing are ‘working’ for google through fUN! =)

-Diana
P.S. Free Pinkberry tomorrow, Friday 5pm-9pm!!!
http://www.twitter.com/HalfEmptyWallet
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dianawei Diana

Interesting. I can ask my friend who works at LinkedIn if you like.

Anywho, if its free work they should totally make a game up for users to engage to freely work for them……A great example is Google’s Image Labeler game.

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

Actually really fun. That and all the people playing are ‘working’ for google through fUN! =)

-Diana
P.S. Free Pinkberry tomorrow, Friday 5pm-9pm!!!
http://www.twitter.com/HalfEmptyWallet
Neal Schaffer

Thanks for stopping by Diana!

I had never heard of that before, but that is definitely a clever idea of making it fun to help out! I think that you are right in that they may be able to come up with something creative here. Let’s hope they find a high quality solution that pleases everyone.

But, more importantly, free Pinkberry tomorrow?!? Do tell more!
Neal Schaffer

Thanks for stopping by Diana!

I had never heard of that before, but that is definitely a clever idea of making it fun to help out! I think that you are right in that they may be able to come up with something creative here. Let’s hope they find a high quality solution that pleases everyone.

But, more importantly, free Pinkberry tomorrow?!? Do tell more!