I have managed and owned LinkedIn groups since 2010, and have struggled to cope with LinkedIn removing group management tools over the last 6 months. This WordPress site was created as a direct result of a LinkedIn Groups “upgrade” in October 2015.
I have now set a deadline for LinkedIn to restore most of the useful stuff they removed by 24 December 2015, otherwise I will close my own “SAS Author: Philip R Holland” group (650+ members) and resign from being a manager of the “SAS Professional Forum” group (30,000+ members).
In the meanwhile I’m encouraging the members of both these groups to register on this site, and to join my parallel Google+ community called, with outstanding originality, “SAS Professional Forum”. I would encourage everyone who reads this post to guide their friends and colleagues to these sites too, as I don’t believe LinkedIn will be capable of fixing sufficient bugs and restoring previously working LinkedIn Groups functionality to make it worthwhile using that platform again!
Today is the day when I close my own LinkedIn group “SAS Author: Philip R Holland”, and hand over “SAS Professional Forum” to 3 volunteers, Nikola Markovic, Andrew Howell and Andrew Karp. From now on I’ll be concentrating on my Google+ community “SAS Professional Forum” and this WordPress site.
Please feel free to invite your friends and colleagues!
It is Christmas Eve. I’ve closed one LinkedIn Group “SAS Author: Philip R Holland”, and handed over the management of another “SAS Professional Forum”, and I’m not regretting it yet. I just hope the new managers of “SAS Professional Forum” can work together sufficiently to keep that group a place for SAS-related discussions, and not a place filled with spam and irrelevant comments which I found in 2010. They will probably find it more difficult than I did, because:
1. Communication is not an issue when you manage a group on your own.
2. Time differences (UK, USA and Australia) will make discussions involving all 3 managers unlikely.
3. The current group rules work best with somewhere to record actions, which is easy with just one manager, whereas 3 managers will have to maintain a shared file somehow.
4. LinkedIn has removed many of the useful group management tools available since 2010, including Latest Activity, Popular discussions view, and moderation directly from the discussions.
I think the new managers will have to change the Group Rules very quickly!
Sounds like you have 3 great people to fill your shoes. It does appear that LinkedIn is trying to move away from the Groups, which I think is one of it’s better features.