Adam Nash of LinkedIn: Gentleman, Internet Tactician

Yesteray, while liveblogging the often tedious Graphing Social Patterns East conference, I digressed into Snark mode while writing about the presentation by LinkedIn’s Adam Nash:

Data viz plans: New apps to (for example) show who’s moved where, understand relationships between people and companies, etc. [I’d love to see my LinkedIn network represented as a Venn diagram.]

Unbelievable quote: “I have a number of interns starting next week [!]” that will explore new kinds of visualizations. [Dude: If it’s a strategic priority, why are freaking interns getting the work? What, you can’t find people via LinkedIn who can do the job?]

I posted the above at 9:45 a.m.

At 6:28 p.m. Adam posted this as a comment on my blog:

Just thought I’d say hi here. Very tight synopsis, although I think those last four paragraphs are actually part of the Q&A rather than the presentation itself.

I’m don’t think I actually said that visualization was a strategic priority – right now, we are very much focused on utility and applications that deliver professional value. Visualizations are extremely interesting, but not one of the top application types that we’re focused on internally. The question was from the crowd, from a developer who focuses on visualization. It’s one of the areas that I am sure developers will be able to expand on with the platform.

Thanks for posting these notes (of this and other GSP talks).
Adam

Worth noting here is how Adam–in a way befitting the professionally oriented nature of his enterprise–responded so perfectly to my intemperate post. He started with a compliment and shifted into a clarification that reframed [and corrected] what I’d written. He ended with another compliment.

This is a near-perfect display of best practices when responding to a negative post: Remain calm and respectful, do nothing to escalate a the exchange, clarify the point, keep it short. He comes off looking good, representing himself and his company very well.

Had he responded to my snotty post in kind, he might have written [BUT HE DIDN’T WRITE THE FOLLOWING, JUST TO BE VERY CLEAR. I WROTE IT–CS]:

Dude: If you’d been listening to what I was saying instead of trying to show off your ‘tude, you’d have noticed I didn’t say data visualization is a “strategic priority” for LinkedIn. Frankly, the fact that we’ve put interns on the task shows we’re paying attention, which is more than I can say for you.

If you want people to actually read your blog, dude–which not many people seem to do anyway–you might want to get your facts straight. You could wind up getting your ass sued. Hey, maybe you can find a lawyer using LinkedIn!

p.s. The rest of your write-ups sucked too

Anyhow: Good job, Adam, and thanks for not feeding a flame war or making me look particularly bad on my own blog.

In fact, I think I’m going to go send you a LinkedIn invitation. If you don’t mind.

Dude.

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Tags: gspeast08, LinkedIn

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