BLOG by zaiss

I was sitting in my office, and my new office mate had a few people in her office trying to troubleshoot the newest feature they had added to their program. They needed to call someone in, but didn’t have his phone number, so they called the directory. We were all shocked at what came next.

Everyone stood there, shocked, not quite sure what to do. Did we mis-dial? What was going on?

Nervous laughter ensued, as well as a comment – something like, “You’d think he’d have better things to do.” It was all my office mate could do to remember to ask for the person’s phone number she had called for.

I think there’s something interesting going on here. It reminds me of when I called my former doctor to set up an appointment, and he answered. I suppose having the head of the company answer when you call could be considered great customer service, but does it also bring a negative association in our society? Something like, “Why aren’t you busy working?”

In Microsoft’s case, it’s not quite the same, but I wonder if it doesn’t still invoke the same instinctive reaction of shock and confusion.

A true conversation from this evening:

So I’d like to thank that guy (whoever he is) for reminding me about my blog. It appears that I’ve been getting too into it at work, and my blogging paid the price. And then I paid the price, having to comb through 398 spam comments to find the one that was real. Man, I guess those guys from Bliksem really are crooks! In case you haven’t heard, don’t host with Bliksem. They are way too into it, and they lose site of their customers through all that hard “work.”

In the meantime, I’m moving forward with a policy of “Keep it mellow.” Incidentally, that policy is endorsed by Nintendo, who is encouraging people to not get too into playing with their Wiis (sorry, low brow humor slipped in there). My favorite quote from these new health guidelines:

Apparently if you get too into Wii Sports bowling, your Wii remote might fly from your hand, directly (too) into your TV.

Have you ever ordered something from Amazon? How does it usually play out… Step 1: Place the order. Step 2: Get a confirmation email immediately. Step 3: Order ships. Step 4: Credit card charged. Step 5: Shipping confirmation.

If you think about any online transaction site, it usually functions this way, doesn’t it? So why was my Flickr experience so different?

For those who haven’t been following along, I’ve been pondering an upgrade to Flickr pro lately, and I finally took the plunge last Saturday. Now, here’s what has me a bit frustrated about the whole process. Let’s get back to the step breakdown:

• Step 1: Place an order to upgrade to Flickr pro.
• Step 2: Have the money withdrawn from my bank account using Paypal.
• Step 3: Wait a day without my account upgrading or getting any confirmation email from Flickr.
• Step 4: Send an email to their help department saying, “Um, what the hell, please?”
• Step 5: Sit there for a while tapping my foot.
• Step 6: Get an email four days later that my upgrade had been processed.

Now, I’m not so uptight to expect the world to jump when I call it to action. (Why aren’t you jumping?) But Flickr could allay my fears by simply sending a confirmation email automatically when I upgrade. I’ll even write it for them!

Doesn’t it sound all Web 2.0?

When you think about the process of networking, there seem to be two key phases: Making the connections, and keeping in touch with them. Sites that aim to support social networking come up with all sorts of ideas to innovate on the latter (profiles, groups, status, random music in the middle of the webpage -shudder-), but the former seems pretty straight forward. If person A wants to connect with person B, let person B know, and he/she can accept or decline.

Even Facebook, where there is (or, was) a concept of networks, adding a friend was still easy. Find them. Add them. Wait for a reply.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is slightly different. There are two ways to add a friend. If you don’t share a common background, adding your friend is as simple as sending the invite… if you know his/her current email address. Now, I only know the email addresses for about 3% of the people I knew in college. That’s not to say I wouldn’t want to network with them, especially on a professionally-oriented site like LinkedIn.

Good thing there’s Option B - Connect with former co-workers or classmates. No email address required, just a brief message (which can’t be blank) that will be surrounded by cheesy LinkedIn rhetoric:

I’m not sure anyone talks like that, but I digress. If you select Option B, you would think the standard notification process would start up. But… that’s not really the case. Sometimes you get an email, sometimes it shows up a week later, and sometimes not at all. There’s always a confirmation link on your LinkedIn homepage, but if you’re a member, you can attest to the fact that there are quite a few links on that page, so nothing really stands out from visit to visit.

So woe is me, who wants to connect with his friends. When I check my friend status, I’m greeted with this lovely message:

Thirteen unconfirmed invites is more than I’ve ever dealt with on Facebook, Friendster, or even MySpace, because they email the other person when you want to add them. LinkedIn’s “Reconnect” option seems to be a bit shadier, or at least not consistent.

Still, I suppose it makes sense on some level - if the only notification is on my homepage, who’s to say I’m going to visit my homepage frequently, if at all? Maybe my friends just need some more time to see the invitation. Here’s where the added complication comes in:

Apparently over time your invites expire. LinkedIn offers an explanation, and after reading it, I came away with two pieces of information:

1. After the invitation has expired, it’s withdrawn and can’t be replied to anymore.
2. You can click the “Reinvite” button to reactivate the invitation.

Now here’s the kicker - both of those statements are false. A friend of mine who was one of my “expired invitations” accepted my invitation just a week ago, so #1 can’t be right. And if you chose Option B above (to reconnect with coworkers or classmates) the “Reinvite” option isn’t open to you (notice that “Resend” is plain text and not a link in the above image). It seems like for something so cryptic, a bit of fact checking is in order.

Wow, did I really talk that much about the invite process on LinkedIn? A bit overboard? Not at all. It just proves my point - LinkedIn is making the connection process too complex. Really, it doesn’t need to be so difficult. No special rules. No cryptic invite states. Just send an email to the recipient, and let the recipient approve or deny. Easy.