► The New LinkedIn Profile Header Look and the Problems it Brings

LinkedIn slipped in a new look on the world, at least for some (read more on the story below).  This is the new LinkedIn Profile Header area as on May 17, 2012.  It doesn’t really add anything NEW per se, it just uses the Apple look to make things that were already there a bit more intuitive.

We literally saw this brand new LinkedIn Profile Header end user interface release come up in the last hour and here it is “in the news “- that’s Social Media News for you – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter launch a change and the Social Media Press and bloggers are on it right away.  This will be in blogs across North America very soon.  Maybe it started here.

PROBLEMS FOR BOOKS

This instantly makes a lot of things obsolete, especially anything printed or distributed, like a book of PDF or Tip Sheet – some more than others.  It’s one of the reasons that the hot 240-page LinkedIn eBook “How to Really Use LinkedIn” by Jan Vermeiren and Bert Verdonck is so timeless.  There are no screen shots.  It’s available in electronic form in iPad, iBook, Nook, etc. so it can potentially be updated and redistributed.

The 3 column to 2 column LinkedIn User Interface change (January 2010) made lots of LinkedIn books and videos obsolete overnight.  The “click on the link in the left column” instructions were instantly wrong, causing LOTS enormous user confusion.

We caught that one just in time when we released Rock The World with your Online Presence, our 188 page LinkedIn Profile Search Optimization book, in January 2010.  We scrambled to reshoot all the screens and update the instructions and it delayed us a month.

This round (2012 user interface change), our LinkedIn book comes out pretty clean in the User Interface sweepstakes, and again, we’re releasing just after the change!  Like all books that show screen shots (so viewers can SEE the solution), there are risks.  One screen was almost off!  However, the other 30 screen shots are just fine.

This and other critical book topics were addressed at the recent Author-U Extravaganza conference in Denver.  Judith Briles had over 150 attend from all over the world.

Now, it it were all in a fully on-line world real-time updates could be made and…  But that’s another story for another day.

ABOUT USER INTERFACE ROLL OUTS

In the past LinkedIn has not rolled out these User Interface design changes to ALL users at the same time.  LinkedIn Corp. has told us that features and changes like this are released on a “server by server” basis, like in a “roll out”. Today the change seems to be instant and world wide. My partner, Lori Ruff and I had the change together as did our peer in Germany, Jorge Zuazola. He sent Lori a Skype chat asking about the missing recommendation numbers.

We use a “Roll Out process” in our Integrated Alliances U LinkedIn E-Learning program.  A 6 week roll out to users so they don’t get overwhelmed when they learn to Sell with LinkedIn. Do you have to roll out processes too? What do you do to keep your content from becoming obsolete quickly?

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Author: mikeoneil (62 Posts)

@MikeONeilRocks ♫ The LinkedIn Rockstar ♫ #RockTheWorld Author & Radio Host | #LinkedIn Sales Trainer | #SocialMedia Speaker Authority Visionary Celebrity ♫ klas-ik-rokr'/ ♫ Interested in Rocking LinkedIn? Free Training Here: http://RockLinkedIn.com