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Comment by nailer | Hacker News Reader

I imagine it was more like:

- Microsoft has the money

- LinkedIn is the biggest thing in recruiting (I don't especially like it either, but it is). I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recomendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn.

- Microsoft makes business tools

- There's a bunch of interesting opportunities for intrgating Dynamics, Yammer, and other MS tools with LinkedIn.

Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn.

Edit: Nadella said re: how MS looks at acquisitions (http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11920306/microsoft-ceo-sat...) "Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends?" - anyone know what that means?

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> Edit: Nadella said re: how MS looks at acquisitions (http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11920306/microsoft-ceo-sat...) "Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends?" - anyone know what that means?

In general English, "secular" means "non-religious."

In MBA-speak, "secular" means "non-cyclical."

An example of cyclical growth would be ExxonMobil between 2004 and 2007. They couldn't keep up this growth, because it was due entirely to swings in the price of oil.

An example of secular growth would be Google between 2004 and 2007. They were able to ride the trend of advertising moving online. (Advertising is a cyclical business, but Google won't feel it until advertising stops moving online.)

Nadella is saying that he believes LinkedIn is riding a sustained trend.

> In MBA-speak, "secular" means "non-cyclical."

It's not "MBA-speak"; this sense of the word "secular" is used in economics, time-series analysis, astronomy, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_variation

What's the etymology of that?

1250-1300; < Medieval Latin sēculāris, Late Latin saeculāris worldly, temporal (opposed to eternal), Latin: of an age, equivalent to Latin saecul (um) long period of time + -āris -ar1; replacing Middle English seculer < Old French < Latin, as above

In fact: century in Italian is "secolo"... :)

It comes from the Latin saeculum which is a period of time longer than a person's life. Rome used to hold the secular games, which was an event so big, it'd never be seen again in a person's lifetime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum

A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a human population. The word has evolved within Romance languages (and Swedish) to mean "century".

> The word has evolved within Romance languages (and Swedish) to mean "century".

Doesn't that come from centum (100) like cent and centurion?

That's for Germanic languages. In Romance languages the words for century look like "seculo", "siglo", &c.

What they meant is that in Romance languages century is a cognate of secular: secolo in Italian, siècle in French, siglo in Spanish…

And secol in Romanian ^_^

> It's not "MBA-speak"; this sense of the word "secular" is used in economics, time-series analysis, astronomy, etc.

Of course it's MBA-speak. MBA-speak does not mean that they invented the word, or that only MBAs use the word. It just means that MBAs prefer to use the word where another one would do.

Nadella could have talked about "long-term trends" or "ongoing trends" or "sustainable trends." However, he chose to use "secular trends." His fondness for jargon makes him harder to understand.

Another example of MBA-speak is "synergy." The OED traces "joint action, cooperation" to 1632, and "a combined effect which is greater than additive" to 1904 ("synergism"). The first listed MBA-speak usage of the term is a 1981 article in The Economist on brokerage mergers.

Does that mean that "synergy" is "not MBA-speak" because the term is also used by scientists? Of course not! It just means that the MBAs adopted a term that others had already been using.

I would place "secular" into the same category as "synergy." The OED traces its astronomical usage to 1801 and its economics usage to 1895. Its first appearance outside a scientific context is in 1973, in an article in The Daily Telegraph on interest rates.

> I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recomendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn.

I'm a recruiter, and fully understand reluctance to use recruiters (expensive, not to mention a host of other reputation issues).

I don't quite understand "I would't hire someone via...LinkedIn". 'Hire someone via LinkedIn' could mean a host of things.

The most obvious would be an ad - you might place an ad on LinkedIn, and that could be 'hiring via LinkedIn'. LinkedIn ads are relatively expensive, so I wouldn't fault you for not placing ads there either.

But to many, LinkedIn is just a database or catalog of people who you can reach out to (or who can reach out to you).

If you saw a LinkedIn profile that you thought would make a good addition to your team, would you not reach out to that person just because you found them on LinkedIn?

If someone approached you and said "I saw your profile on LinkedIn and I like what your company is doing, I'd like to get together and discuss the possibility of working with you", would you say no?

I expect the answers are "no" to both questions, but when we (in recruiting) talk about using LinkedIn for hires, we generally would agree that there are a handful of ways LinkedIn might be useful in the hiring process.

Well yeah, I think we're agreed. We might not use recruiters, but LinkedIn still helps us maintain business connections.

Which now are going to be part of some shadow profile inside Microsoft databases (à la Facebook).

I think my business connections data is the least of my concerns. It's mostly public anyway.

> If you saw a LinkedIn profile that you thought would make a good addition to your team, would you not reach out to that person just because you found them on LinkedIn?

There's a good reason for me not to have a linkedin profile. Recruiters somehow still manage to find me but this is fortunately less of a problem than it would be otherwise (judging by my colleagues and friends).

It's a bit like not being visible in google: if you can't google it, it doesn't exist. And if you're not on linkedin the laziest contingent of the recruiting profession will be unable to locate you. Fine by me.

Tangental, but are there any laws against SMS recruiter spam in the U.S.? Some recruiters have found my SMS somehow and text me with offers now. Mildly infuriating.

I don't know about laws, but your cell provider should have information about where to report spam texts, and those would certainly qualify. You should get reimbursed for the charges (since SMS in the US makes no sense and receivers pay for them).

Most recruiters view a LinkedIn profile as an invite to reach out to almost anyone, and many recruiters apparently are reaching out to people who explicitly say "please, don't contact me if you're a recruiter".

There used to be an "interested in" section at the bottom of profiles. It appears to be gone now, and you could check off things like "Career opportunities", "networking", etc. That section appears to be gone now.

Using LinkedIn isn't lazy for recruiters, it's smart - it's just the easiest way to find people. The easiest way to find active job seekers would be resume/job boards.

Recruiters who limit themselves to only using LinkedIn to identify potential candidates are lazy. Many devs could be found in a host of other places, and many like you don't want to be on LinkedIn.

The other reason recruiters tend to rely on LinkedIn is they can get quite a bit of value out of it even at the free level.

Managed to stay away from LinkedIn, don't post on Twitter, FB and still get calls once in a while. They probably scour language / platform specific mailing lists or look at conference attendance lists.

>> "I saw your profile on LinkedIn and I like what your company is doing, I'd like to get together and discuss the possibility of working with you"

I think this is my problem with LinkedIn, that conversation doesn't happen. I get connection requests and I'm left baffled to what their angle is. I literally scan the bio of the one connecting for the words 'recruiter' or 'business development' and then reject them. It's because I'm not looking to use LinkedIn for that reason.

Turns out it was this exact frustration that sparked the motivation to create a startup in my daily vlog.

Link for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGTowTy88dEKxrFibOimY...

I think these conversations don't happen because job seekers aren't really using LinkedIn in this way, at least yet. When I coach job seekers, I usually encourage them to use LinkedIn to try and identify companies that could be a fit similar to how recruiters use LinkedIn.

If you're a Python dev and you want to work within 30 miles of Dallas TX, you can do an advanced search on the word Python (maybe add a couple others) and then set location to Dallas metro. Your results will be individuals, and those individuals all should be working for local companies that are using Python (with some false positives obviously). That's a decent list to start off for someone, because it's not just companies that are currently listing open jobs - applying only to open jobs isn't the best way to find jobs.

  I get connection requests and I'm left baffled to what
  their angle is.

I think these are recruiters/business developers who don't want to pay for InMail or Premium accounts.

>I literally scan the bio of the one connecting for the words 'recruiter' or 'business development' and then reject them. It's because I'm not looking to use LinkedIn for that reason.

If someone is scanning the bio just to find out whether the messenger is a recruiter or in biz dev, chances are the difference between a free or paid account is trivial.

As a recruiter, I was reluctant for many years to use a paid account, as I received feedback from some candidates that seemed to equate a paid account with the most aggressive recruiters that overstepped bounds in LinkedIn. I eventually caved to get a paid account, but I don't know that the additional features are worth both (a) the expense and (b) any negative stigma that some may associate with having a paid account.

Not being a recruiter myself, I couldn't say whether the paid features are worth it, either. However, I never accept invites from people I don't know, especially when they lack context (i.e., an introductory message to go with the invite). The odds I'll at least skim an InMail message are higher, even if my responses are almost 100% of the time "Thanks, but I'm not interested right now."

That said, I log into my LinkedIn account maybe a half-dozen times a year, so I doubt my usage is typical. Take the above with a grain of salt.

> If you saw a LinkedIn profile that you thought would make a good addition to your team, would you not reach out to that person just because you found them on LinkedIn?

I'd never approach someone cold like that.

>If someone approached you and said "I saw your profile on LinkedIn and I like what your company is doing, I'd like to get together and discuss the possibility of working with you", would you say no?

I'd absolutely say no, because that kind of unsolicited approach means that you're just fishing, and that I happened to wind up in your net along with umpteen others. In other words, you approaching me via a LinkedIn profile doesn't mean you're actually interested.

OK. If you happened to be on LinkedIn and saw someone that had taken the time to put together an attractive profile (nice summary, links to GitHub and maybe a tech blog, their email address (contact me at...), a comment about being open to new career opportunities, all the niceties), and that person's skill set was a fit for a position you had currently available, would you just pretend you didn't see this person at all? Would you somehow try to find a mutual acquaintance? I'm not sure I understand why you wouldn't approach someone "cold" - in my example I'd say it's hardly cold (they are inviting contact), and I don't think my example is an edge case.

Your answer to the 2nd question is a bit more troubling to me. If someone stumbles on your profile on LinkedIn, does some additional research to see about your company, finds out it's a place he/she might like, why do you say this is "fishing"? You may be the only person this job seeker reached out to - why would you assume otherwise?

LinkedIn can be a valuable tool for job seekers to find information about a company - usually a bit more informative technically than standard company PR (other than a tech blog).

I think if you're dismissing candidates simply because you happened to see them on LinkedIn, or simply because they learned about the existence of your company via LinkedIn, you aren't doing your employer any favors.

If that's how it really worked then it might work out ok.

But this is the real world and standards aren't going to be kept that high. Even if you stick to doing things well, your competitors won't and they will turn us off you too.

I'm not entirely sure if you're referring to 'your competitors' to mean 'other recruiters' (not sure you realized I'm a recruiter), but my comment here actually is referring to job seekers interacting directly with potential employers without any recruiters involved.

I agree entirely with your second point. Identifying myself as a recruiter immediately is the end of conversation with many in the industry due to the actions of a growing percentage of recruiters. It's unfortunate, and one reason I'm expanding business into consulting with companies to help them attract job seekers without using recruiters. Candidates these days are often inclined to go directly without a middleman.

What other ways would you like a recruiter to contact you then?

I'm not GP but my answer to this question would be "I wouldn't"

Oh man, so much this. I get so much recruiter spam from LinkedIn, I just stopped responding altogether. One recruiter took to emailing and calling me daily, despite the fact that I never once responded to them.

That doesn't make me think you're interested in my particular talents. It makes me think you're desperate and a sociopath who has no respect for other people's time or wishes. If I wanted to talk to you, I would have responded after one of the first 10 attempts to contact me. Get a frickin' clue!

Did you consider responding and letting them know you weren't interested?

>I'd absolutely say no, because that kind of unsolicited approach means that you're just fishing, and that I happened to wind up in your net along with umpteen others.

No it doesn't. I've contacted companies who weren't advertising jobs a few times and it was because I had a specific interest in working at the company in question. In my experience people are usually quite pleased to get these kinds of inquiries, whether or not they have a suitable position. Of course your initial inquiry has to be tailored and not just some kind of generic "gimme a job please" spam.

That aside, who exactly do you think you are? Most people who are going to be applying for jobs are naturally going to be applying for jobs at a bunch of different companies. After all, it would be a bit presumptuous to assume that the first company you contact is going to hire you, and most people are able to identify quite a number of companies where they would probably be happy to work. Is your outfit really so special that you can demand serial monogamy from job applicants?

This was my point and you've phrased it well. How should someone try to identify companies they may want to work for (especially if geography is at play)?

You can search open jobs, but everyone is doing that.

If you want startups, you can look into PR and press releases about funding.

LinkedIn is great for this. As I wrote in another comment, go to LinkedIn and do an advanced search for some word that applies to your background (say 'Python') and within 30 miles of Philadelphia. You'll get a lot of profiles that come up, and many will currently work for companies that are using Python in your area.

Do a bit of research on those companies that come up, find an employee that does what you do (or a level up, or even a CTO at a small shop), find their email address (or ping thru Linked) and make a simple approach.

"Hey, I am currently exploring some new opportunities and while doing some research I came across $COMPANY. I'm not sure if you are currently hiring or not, but based on what I've read (ADD SOMETHING SPECIFIC HERE TO SHOW YOU DID AT LEAST A BIT OF HOMEWORK ON THEM) I'd certainly be interested in learning a bit more about the company. My background is $BRIEFBACKGROUND. If interested, I'd be happy to buy you a cup of coffee to learn some more."

I think that's a very aggressive line of thinking. You put your profile on LinkedIn. Someone else, looking for a job, is researching opportunities and likes what you are doing. They contact you expressing interest, and you blow them off just because they found out about you via LinkedIn?

>Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn.

This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful.

What makes me nervous though, is some things could get worse. (skype has gone downhill ever since the acquisition i feel).

> This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful.

Yeah well they acquired Skype and see what a mess that became. Even Windows itself sometimes...

I suppose it depends on which team gets the job?

> I suppose it depends on which team gets the job?

I bet! The number of people in here that think a company with >118,000 employees is always going to make the same tech and design decisions is baffling.

That's because many decisions are caused by the environment, not the people. In the meaning that it's still the people doing them, but everybody on the same environment tend to choose similar things, and when in another environment, those same people tend to choose different things.

This is actually documented on management literature, with empirical studies and quantitative results.

That's a great point - though I bet there are many microclimates within Microsoft :)

Would love to read some of these management studies; it sounds intuitive but (as always) it's much easier to grok the bigger picture with concrete examples. Can you point me to some of the literature?

I don't remember most, but Peopleware has an interesting example.

About the microclimates, looks to me that how much of the environment is dictated by the top itself is one of those decisions affected by the environment. No idea how Microsoft is structured.

Microsoft doesn't have that many products that they can't get someone 1) high enough up the tree that people will listen to their comments and 2) with ui experience/common sense to check them prior to any acquisition/major change and make sure it doesn't suck.

Agreed. The LinkedIn UX is awful, but I'm not sure Microsoft are the people I'd want to address a UX issue.

Skype could definitely use some more love from the Product Dept. Perhaps we'll see an integration with LinkedIn? I mean most of my interviews from LinkedIn end up in Skype anyways.

I used to have a normal Skype in Linux. Then migrated to live: type of account (AKA Outlook). Now I cannot even access my Skype anymore because the outlook/skype don't sync properly.

I'm slowly migrating away from any Microsoft product. Luckily I closed my Linkedin account a while back. This is my new Linkedin: http://francisco.io/ (my own website).

Hello there fellow UPVer! You might want to update your links since http://spacehelmet.info/ is down.

Hi there! Yeah I should review it, a bunch of projects are old-ish

Your rich text editor demo is leading to a 404'd page http://francisco.io/editor. Your site is very nice btw

For what its worth, the Spacehelmet button that points to http://spacehelmet.info also 404's. Otherwise a neat portfolio site.

Random feedback: I spent a few seconds clicking around the arrow before scrolling down.

Skype has gone downhill ever since their first acquisition, and they've been acquired at least three times already.

If anything, MS is starting to slowly take it to a better direction, even though it is nowhere near the ideology of the original Skype.

I believe that LinkedIn will end up being a similar case, where it will continue to suck, but you'll see some slow progress eventually.

EDIT: As pointed out, LinkedIn will likely continue operating independently, as did Skype, which explains the slow progress.

it is true the skype has some issues since MS acquired them, and there were some changes/decision made on it which I disliked, however, it is performing better lately. hopefully it will turn around.

didnt microsoft remove the p2p functionality and made skype highly centralized?

Yes, but speaking from experience, that change resulted in a huge improvement in call quality. The P2P architecture is nice but leaves you at the mercy of your nearest node's internet connection and usage.

Not my experience. Having network issues all the time.

They did so because it was hard to do P2P for Skype on phones.

I figured that was just a figleaf and that the real reason was that this made it easier to intercept the traffic.

Supposedly, they also said that LinkedIn will continue to operate independently.

If we're truly lucky, they'll get their security folks to take a look at LinkedIn as well.

I just hope they don't somehow move the linkedin blast-email invite button to Windows 10.

I have no idea when people say Linkedin UI is awful. To me it is better looking, arranged and pleasing to look at than 99% of similar tools. (Monster, Glassdoor, Indeed, facebook)

On the other hand, I absolutely hate Microsoft's UI on everything from their Flat Design, Xbox Menu, (everything except Office)

UX > UI.

It might be pleasing to look at but it's quite horrible to use.

OK- Granted their UX sucks, if you use it for other than looking up people. I always suspected that may partly be intentional to prevent people and bots digging too much, scraping, misusing and using it for spam

Interface is more than just appearance.

They have actually put a very serious effort into making the UI and UX a lot better over the last 6 months. It's still not great but they have a usable mobile app and chat feature now.

Totally agree on the UX. Example: 99.8% of the openings I've seen on their job board in the past 4 months all redirect to an outside board, usually Indeed. Actually, I only remember finishing an application inside LI once, which begs the question: why aren't companies posting their jobs inside LI? It almost looks like they scrape posts from Indeed. Besides, one of the Premium features is "Featured Applicant: Move to the top of recruiters' applicant lists", which is basically worthless if no one actually applies through LI.

There are many holes in LI's UX which I'm hoping will get fixed after the purchase is complete. I just hope it doesn't break as Skype did (you're not the only one to feel that). Even though it's Microsoft, it's not Ballmer's MSFT anymore, so I'm hopeful. And if it does, there'll be a big gap for some other company to fill.

Exactly. Integration of LinkedIn data with Dynamics and Yammer would be huge.

Imagine this scenario:

- User is logged in to LinkedIn

- User visits your website

- Their visit is logged by some JS to Dynamics CRM

- A record is created/updated in Dynamics CRM, populated with their name, job title and contact details from LinkedIn

Further down the line, I can see LinkedIn fully becoming part of Office 365.

This isn't Microsoft's attempt to get into the social networking game. This is Microsoft wanting accurate data to augment their enterprise collaboration/digital workplace platform.

That is basically steps 1 & 2.

Step 3 is you get an email (marketing or sales) because Dynamics notified assigned a task to a sales rep or started a job in marketing automation.

Then, based on you opening/ replying/ not opening the email, a whole new series of tasks are created.

If MSFT / Dynamics do this right, they will have a very strong Salesforce competitor.

Honestly, Linkedin by itself would have made a very strong Salesforce competitor. Not sure why they never went down that route, instead they focused only on recruiting, the least interesting use-case.

The complete rumor I have heard over the years was a gentleman's agreement between CRM & LKND

Seems like this is what they're going for - https://ncmedia.azureedge.net/ncmedia/2016/06/msft_announce_...

Honestly, this just sounds like a good reason to not be logged into LinkedIn ever, if I needed an additional one. Name and job title sent to random websites? No thanks.

My guess is that their longish-term strategy is to have everybody logged in to their platform when they are doing business work. Using Word? Must log in. Outlook? Ditto. They look like they are using SAAS to get the business software world back under their control.

You can't do it all at once, of course; you'll have some edge cases to deal with. But if you can manage it you'll have tremendous leverage.

they purchased probably the most useful enterprise social graph in the world, except for maybe fb

I'm honestly a little bit repulsed that a person could consider that scenario to be a plus.

Not just the UX but all aspects of brand and design. LinkedIn is hideous, difficult to use, buggy, and creepy. If MSFT can fix a few of those it'll be a win. If not it's hard to see the platform living another 5 years.

> LinkedIn is hideous, difficult to use, buggy, and creepy. If MSFT can fix a few of those it'll be a win.

Have you seen Windows 10 yet?

I feel you're implying Windows 10 is not a well-designed OS.

It's actually quite wonderful and usable OS, IMHO.

Well, it is buggy. Many of us feel that the lack of privacy options for non-enterprise users is somewhat creepy. And if you are the support person for less computer-savvy family members that have woke up to an unwanted Windows 10 upgrade, you will know that many people find it difficult to use.

Why not say it personally and stop generalizing and using "many of us". If it's buggy for you, say it for yourself. "I feel that the lack of privacy...".

Fortunately no. I've not used or seen a Windows machine (aside from old XP VMs I use to test ie) in at least 5 years.

While I'm a big Mac fan and moved to Apple products over 10 years ago, Windows 10 is the first alternative that I would actually consider using full-time now. I think the privacy concerns are valid and should be available to all, not just the pro/enterprise crowd.

The shittiest thing Microsoft has done with W10 is the way they handled upgrades. Nobody should be tricked into upgrading. Opting out should be easy and clear. The upgrade should never happen without the user affirmatively starting it. If the user has software already installed that will be disabled by the W10 upgrade, they should be asked to acknowledge that before the upgrade starts.

> Nadella said re: how MS looks at acquisitions (http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11920306/microsoft-ceo-sat...) "Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends?" - anyone know what that means?

He's referring to whether usage is going mainstream, shifting from early adopters to the general market[1]. He's looking at technology that's already big but has the potential to get even bigger.

When usage is limited only to early adopters, it's not useful to Microsoft since it's such a large company. But when general folks are also beginning to adopt a piece of technology, it's a sign that things are going right.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

Calling LinkedIn a business tool seems more appropriate. No one actually thinks of it as a social network anymore do they? (In the consumer sense of the term, not the graph theory one)

A business tool to integrate into sharepoint? What?

>- There's a bunch of interesting opportunities for intrgating Dynamics, Yammer, and other MS tools with LinkedIn.

I doubt there are any "get $26 billion dollars back" opportunities...

its really about just returning margin on $27 billion. The deal isn't supposed to pay for itself now. To be successful for them, it only has to do better than the cash would have done in a standard portfolio investment. LinkedIn may be able to do that.

They just purchased a verified email address and complete contact address list (with phone numbers) for nearly every white collar worker in the western world.

If managed right, over the lifetime of the investment, this could easily make back 10x what they paid.

How? What would they do with a contact address list that would be so profitable?

Spam them.

Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn.

Along those lines, maybe they'll fix the very broken email alerts for group postings. For quite a while, my experience has been that if I have it set to weekly digests I do get them weekly as expected, but if I set a group to daily digests I get nothing at all. So I get nothing at all for the groups that I have the most interest in. I opened a support ticket about it but got nowhere with it. I don't know if this impacts everyone or just some subset of users, but I've seen others complain about it.

> I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recommendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn.

This seems like a pretty arbitrary distinction.

> I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn

Why? I don't care how someone got the interview, it's the person and their skills and abilities that I am going to assess (also recruiters get lots of work off my head, which is good, especially when our HR dept. isn't able to do it)

Except I haven't gotten a gig in years from LinkedIn. I use it as an automated resume generator tool; I don't give a rats ass who sees my resume on LinkedIn itself.

I presume "secular usage and technology trends" means "is its growth down to the fact it happens to be down to the market it plays showing strong growth trends even without hype and marketing spend associated with this particular company". Can only assume the secular trend he's thinking of there is growth in "business prospecting tools" which is the potential area for Microsoft to build revenue generating services that also integrate with their CRM and Office, and not the established and plateau-ing LinkedIn userbase, which is simply a potential strategic advantage for Microsoft products in that space.

Sure, Microsoft don't have a great record with their acquisitions, but the opportunity for them to generate more revenue directly and indirectly from this is huge.

Just wrote a post discussing this phrase and other interesting ones in his memo https://medium.com/@SVSpeak/deciphering-satya-nadellas-ratio...

"Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn"

Why do you think that will happen? Azure had AWS as a model, yet the UX is not just worse but surprisingly worse. MS bought a product I was on, and I was excited to clean it up. The exact opposite happened; we were given no time to fix design problems, and instead had to pile on features. The MSDN site has been tired for almost two decades now. I feel as though we were talking about two different companies.

I thought the same you described. Microsoft executives are not dumb, people talk about their failures, but they take controlled risks and are still strong. What about companies that do not take risks and never fail? The profit of this corporation is still impressive, even delaying to take some steps on industry and failing in some products.

> Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn.

Wait, what? Are you saying you want Microsoft to "Metro-ify" LinkedIn? Forget the OS, even, for a minute... Just look at what they did to Skype and Office.

Are you saying you LIKE their current UX ideology?

Put the Yammer product folks on LinkedIn and clean up the LinkedIn web and mobile products.

I'm still not sure what purpose Yammer serves. It's basically business-y old-UI Facebook, as far as I can see. But I've never understood any of that range of products - Lotus Connections, Salesforce Chatter, Yammer, etc, etc. They feel like solutions in search of a problem.

The problem is semi-persistent group chats. There are a bunch of partial existing solutions, but they all have issues:

* IRC: UX is pretty awful, any persistence of chats is ad-hoc and hand-rolled, plain text only, relatively high burden on sysadmins. * Jabber/MSN/Yahoo/etc.: very poor group chat support * Skype: very difficult to integrate with anything else, no support for self-hosting. * Slack/HipChat - good options, more or less contemporary, very much in direct competition with Yammer. Both more ephemeral though - IME Yammer ends up better than either, because it's just persistent enough that you can find old discussions/documentation when you need to.

I think it also has to do with their view on business communication. (lync or whatever they work on now, you catch my drift) With linkedin they can integrate that into their system and have a(nother?) unique selling point.

Yet, the chances this will go terribly wrong are much higher, just in general with "other social networks", but also given Microsoft's track record with multi-billion dollar acquisitions.

>> Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn

MS's UX - Like the one where they consider closing a dialog box to be a consent to upgrade to Windows 10? ;)

"Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn."

You buy the shades, and I'll get ready to search the registry for a lower case hack.

I feel like I keep up with tech stuff pretty good but I had to look up what Dynamics was when Satya mentioned it in his internal email.

yeah same, have no idea wtf Microsoft do these days

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