After 7 years of free blogging for my 17.000 followers on #LinkedIn and over 160.000 visits on my other blog websites during this time, I decided to shut down this chapter.
And... to re-open a new one with the BREADHUNTER Members Club.


It's time now for more quality before quantity and a closer community of those, who got it...what's really going on, without generic #mimimi #content and #people.


If you are used to read FAZ, Zeit, WELT, Handelsblatt, NZZ, NYT and Times London, you might know, what is the difference between free, generic, neoliberalism content and real journalism. I believe we will turn back now to these structures.


We have no problem to pay 1.000 $ and more for a new IPhone, or 500 $ for the SUV leasing fee per month, but we are to avaricious to spend at least 3,5 $ per week for good content, which is a cup of coffee.


So get your brain back, and think about, which good habits from the last 25 years we have lost and which addictive ones we are used to, that has changed our mindset, without seeing it.


Stay tuned! You are an adult now. ;-)
​

Mr. Breadhunter

​LinkedIn is a business platform to connect with great people, right? And these 3 guys from the pic above are smart, but 2 of them did a great job for social media 18 years ago and 1 of them made a great turnaround of Microsoft, and now? Did you become lazy or just horny for even more profit during the last 2 years? Has Microsoft to try to get the money back they invested in the acquisition of LinkedIn via stupid ads and content?
What is the status-quo of LinkedIn?

"It has become a 2nd Facebook-Gram and company advertising platform and this really, really, (sorry guys) SUCKS! :-)."

Maybe it would be an idea to have a paid account, where I just see relevant info, that really matters, no boring old school info an I am sure AI could do this if we just let AI do. So, I want to go deeper into the topic, because some would think, I do not know how to handle my #LinkedIn account and therefore I see so much bullshit every day, maybe you can help me if I have missed something.
​

1. I wanted to see content that matters, no #mimimi content, some late birds just discovering now, but which is from 2012, can I filter this or can AI please let me see only the relevant content I really like? At the moment I have to scrawling through 90% irrelevant things and then in between, I find 10% content, that is really interesting. So I have to make a selection like if I do market research for my clients. Normally AI should do this for me, but AI is now in kindergarten and not well educated at the moment, that's the problem. And it's also the problem, that we all became journalists in social media, whether we are a butcher, a teenager, a real journalist or academic and this boomerang comes now back to us via stupid content, housewife video stories on LinkedIn and fake news. It was a good time when it was more common to think first and then to speak because there was no need to select so much stupidity. I want #LinkedIn to become a good selected platform without #mimimi content, but also without governmental influence or brainwashing political correct things you should or shouldn't say. Maybe show the non-premium all this stupid advertising from employer branding and companies, but if you are smart and social, you kill all stupid content and change your business model, because it should be a human right to see intelligent content on social media platforms, instead of stupid ads like in a TV shop channel.
   
   
2. How to manage interesting contacts, besides your maybe 100 contacts you deal with in daily business? Yes, I use CRM too and at the moment I put all interesting contacts there, that matter, but I am sure there are many interesting contacts I have in my network I do not think of, because they could be better grouped or showed AI supported. Yes, I know I can search through my contacts via region, job or company, etc pp, but this is not what I want to do all the time, so I think there could be better options to visualize contacts, profiles than by this old-school database way...
   
   
3. I would like to turn off all ads and generic content produced by companies who just discover new work in 2019 and think it's innovative and smart to show the Funky Office, the Kicker, and the Playground or new Macs. This and other things are so boring. Where were your postings 10 years before, when it was new and relevant? Yes, I know this might be another problem, that companies are slow like a Titanic and smart startups fast speedboats, but why to show off with old school, generic things, that does not matter? I think the new social media strategy of many corporates for the next 5 years plan is to show as many team pictures as possible, as many high-fives and selfies from conferences or inspiring Kanban-Boards and the crowd is copying this kind of behavior again and again, like an addict, and I believe they do not care and understand, how stupid this is. It's a teenager behavior which is the new social media trend of companies now with big budgets to produce more irrelevant content. More and more people here are getting bored too and sooner or later #LinkedIn will be the next media for the 65+ generation, same as facebook for some years now. As a global company, you should show humans the right way, but you jumped on the same profit generating train as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter did before... - yes, we are trapped and sometimes even by our own faults, but also by the stupid content we have to suffer here, but it was founded as a business platform in early 2003, right?

​

​On the other side, these 3 points are a chance to be creative again and disconnect from here or find a solution on how to handle your contacts that matter. In daily business, I use this here as a contact pool and after personal contact, these contacts get part of my CRM and paper address book.

Maybe #LinkedIn will be in some years just interesting for new bees without any contacts and if you get older and your network bigger, you can disconnect and switch to your own blog and website only. Business and networks exist for more than 2.000 years and I imagine the times in the late 90ties when headhunters were a bit like the mystic-holy-grail-keepers with their own databases and networks before social media came up and I liked this time and also the slip box with your contacts in a mad men style, ;-) where also no one asked for GDPR. :-p

Greetings from Vienna and enjoy your weekend!
​
Thomas
Picture Source: http://fortune.com/2016/12/23/microsoft-linkedin-wish-list/

​So what's next? How can we change and prepare for the future instead of stewing in our own juice all the time?


Yes, social media and LinkedIn is getting more boring for 4-5 years, and super boring since late 2018, because of all these generic posts big companies from DACH area create and copy from each other, but also from newbies on LinkedIn.


Team pics with high-fives, funny offices with playground and unboxing my new Mac on the 1st business day has become common if you want to be an innovative company, and people like it or they don't like it and don't see it, because they are just creating content all the time, without watching..., hm ?!


So, let me take a look back to 2012, where I started being more active on LinkedIn, yes I was before more on Xing and Facebook from 2003 - 2011, I believe the content was better or more international, the nowadays, maybe it was not so generic here, because it was a business platform for international people, who really worked globally. Now it is just for 50%, while it is 50% for the DACH people and an Instagram community, who wants to make business too.


Yes, it was nice to get ca. 25 k contacts here during the last 7 years and grew 17 k followers on #LinkedIn, but so what? It helped me to be trendy, but for business maybe just for 50% in sales, because I could find easier my sales targets before I gave them a phone call.


In recruiting I have to confess, that I did a lot of research here, even with several premium accounts, but the best candidates came from own network and classical direct search by phone or via a recommendation by not interested targets. I never placed a retainer project and position just by #LinkedIn, it just helped me to show the clients a track record of my work.


Ok, #LinkedIn is great to search and filter international contacts that matter and call them after that to arrange a meeting, and maybe its also good for self-marketing, as I do for my #BREADHUNTER #Blog and #company, but that's all and I believe it will now come down as #Xing is coming down for DACH region(because all DACH people discover now LinkedIn). So why coming down?


Because people will be getting bored with all the content here and the return on investment is low for your business but good to show off. I think social media was a nice playground for us in the last 10 years, but I am not sure about its real impact or return on investment we got. Maybe in the short term, but not sustainable. Trends are always like a pendulum and now I believe we have the turning point before it goes to the other direction. Maybe not the generic crowd, but the thinkers and creative people feel like me. This is what I have learned from recent talks during the last 6 months.
So what's next?


After 4 weeks of detox from social media and even Linkedin(ok I had some few automated posts and comments), it feels good and I met more people or called more friends by my #Punkt-Phone . I think for some it's now the renaissance of a new kind of business area, going back to #madmen style and personal, strong, global networks.
While the crowd has even more fun here, we change our business habits to be more effective, selective and sustainable regarding our contacts and friends we do business with.


In the end, it's just hard work, that makes us happy, not the dopamine-kick from posting and liking things on social media. To discover this, you need to be creative without social media and just do it, after a social media and device detox.

• Shut down your smartphone for at least 1 week, and you will see, how addictive you are.
• Try to check your emails just 3-4 times per day, as well as your social media accounts e.g. #linkedin
• Kill WhatsApp and al messenger apps and just use your phone and email. - yes, your friends will not like it, but if they are gone by this change, they might not be your friends... ;-)
• Take a notebook or e-Ink tablet and use the first 15 minutes in the morning to write down your plans, goals, and ideas.

I think in times with a lot of work and social media overkill, it feels good to kill social media and focus. Who is always available belongs to the staff. ;-)


Build your own business and life around you and do not let built it by the others for you, otherwise, you will be a glassy robot.


So, my conclusion is, that we can slow down to hit the right targets like a sniper. We are not hamsters in a wheel, we are human beings, who think, feel and can make fast turnarounds if needed, but let the hamsters run, if they want, it's a chance for you to be different and hit the goal like a blind ZEN archer.


Thoughts from Vienna by BEADHUNTER


Picture source: https://www.powertobefound.com/black-hat-social-media-will-kill-business/

​So what did I do now?
I made some rules, how to use social media and my devices during the day and also while I meet with good friends, and this made my life more satisfying and productive, even I was productive and satisfied before, but you can always finetune.

So what are these rules and workflows?

1. I am only available by phone and email, 8 am - 8 pm. That's enough because I am not a 24/7/365 Pizza service. ;-)
2. When we meet with friends we put our phones into a box which is in the middle of the dinner table and all devices remain there until we leave. If someone is bored by a conversation topic he can change it or leave, but there is not participation while you check your WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook every 10 minutes.

Which devices I use?

1. Smartphone only when I am traveling, but not when I am in Vienna.
2. My regular phone can only call and send sms, like this one's: LIGHT PHONE or PUNKT MP02 phone
3. I use my Computer and the internet only during the day, when I work, but I killed all messenger apps and accounts like: Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Xing, Signal, Twitter, etc pp. - maybe #LinkedIn is the next one in 6 months... ;-)
4. I use a paper eInk tablet like the remarkable or Boox Note Pro for my meetings and the IPad only for showing presentations to clients.
5. Yes, I use all my databases like CRM's, ATS and also Video Calls, but not on the go.

​So in the end I just use my phone, where I can get called and the e-ink notebook during meetings and there is no interruption during the day than by a phone call or personal meeting, because I check my eMails 4 times per day only and only on my computer not a mobile device. The result is that from this video: