Linked In Me: Franco Romanini

WHO’S FRANCO ROMANINI ???

Please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Franco Romanini and I am a professional with more than 15 years of work experience and a vast international background and leading roles in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, United States and

Canada

I have a Master’s Degree in International Relations and International Economics and a thesis in “E-commerce and the New Economy” published in 2001 I have a solid academy foundation. I have strong skills in management, negotiation and the closing of the deals, spotting business opportunities and building a solid relationship with suppliers, costumers and employees. As I had worked with MercadoLibre.com as an International regional manager for some years in South America and I know what the goals are and what needs to be done in order to achieve them.

I know LinkedIn for more than 5 years and since its beginning I am familiarized with its platform and as you can see at this blog, I have several ideas in how to develop the Brazilian and South American market on LinkedIn. In fact, the ideas are global and can be used in the entire world. I know Brazil and South America and I know LinkedIn and I think that together we can create a lot of new things.

I am fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French. My computer skills are also advanced; working with computers is a pleasure for me. I have won three times the most prestigious “Entrepreneurship Contest in Quebec” in 2006 and 2007. I would say that my three strongest qualities are problem-solver, fast learner and self starter.

At my blog, I wrote few ideas and brainstorms that may work or may not work. The objective of this work is to create ideas, make projections, visualize where the company will be in 5 to 10 years from now, brainstorming concepts that can be cataloged as stupid or brilliant, it may vary according the point of view employed.

This is just a small sample of my work, among many other ideas that I would like to share with you. From my side, such project is a way to approach LinkedIn and let them know that even without been part of its staff, I want to collaborate and make LinkedIn better and also make them to discovery me.

Currently I live in Montreal, Canada and I am able to travel in order to introduce myself and have a face to face interview with you. I would appreciate if you could recommend this blog to some decision maker.

In life anything is possible. However if we never try, it becomes impossible!

Thank you!

LoggedIn time

The Internet companies must solve a challenge: How to make their users keep logged in longer and more often. The only answer to such defy is the creation of new tools, innovation, listening to their user needs and making them more involved with their community.

The social and professional networkings are the Internet industry with the longer logged in average time. For this reason, LinkedIn, as a professional networking company, must create tools to have its users logged in longer, incentivizing them to navigate more, participate more, being more active and spending more quality time at LinkedIn. On this blog I wrote dozens of ideas that how it could be done. I hope you like it!

Non-profit organization volunteers: I care

Beside to be a professional and social networking, where professionals encounter themselves, LinkedIn could have a space for to the same professionals to become volunteers, allowing them to help thousands of foundations, groups, clubs, institutions and Non-governmental organizations.

LinkedIn should create a space where professional should find near of them a non-profit organization that may need volunteers to help them to develop their activities. The fields may vary: sport coaches, financial advisers, entrepreneur mentors, Boy Scout leaders, fundraiser staff, festival clerk or any other kind of volunteer service. A new section at LinkedIn would be created and all foundations could list their posts for free. Also, the users who accepted to participate as volunteers, would be distinguished with the I care medal in their profile.

Generation 2020: Be part of it

LinkedIn would create promotions incentivizing companies to recruit young professionals and in special Trainees. The idea is to incentive companies and recruiters to hire new graduates without any fee.

LinkedIn will create a space where young professionals, will have their first real experience in the work market inside their professions. With this campaign, LinkedIn will help to create the next generation of top executives. LinkedIn will also create a slogan to be used in such campaign: Generation 2020: Be part of it, The future top executives are here or Campus LinkedIn.

University Alliances

LinkedIn should create alliances with worldwide top universities, where the future professionals and executives are now. LinkedIn team would contact top universities and institutions, or its members, or its group creators offering them, incentives to make their community to grow faster; creating campaigns with prizes, free upgrade memberships, student grants, HR coaching, among other possibilities. The university or institution would place somehow the LinkedIn posters on the university campus, student union, websites, among other possibilities.

LinkedIn would work in both fronts: from one side, increasing the numbers of universities and young graduates involved and from the other side, working directly with companies, helping them to hire Trainees and young professional for free.

Webcam and Sound

LinkedIn should create tools to allow its users to speak and to see their contacts online. A kind of Messenger or Skype would be a great asset to the company. LinkedIn must create tools to have its users logged in more time.

The development of such tools may be expensive and may demand lots of work, but as the company is growing fast: 15 million users in 2008, 45 million users in 2009, in few years, the company will reach 100 million users, and mostly of its users, will prefer to use such tools insight, instead Messenger or Skype.

The other possibility, easier, is to make a deal with a third company to provide such service or to create an alliance with Messenger or Skype to provide their services. The possibilities are endless; such tools would allow LinkedIn to have space for conferences, presentations, seminars, work interviews, among other services.

Interviews: How they got there?

It is a fact - Top executives from all over the world, all big companies are registered at LinkedIn. Many users, where I include myself, utilize LinkedIn to know and to learn how such top executives got there. Presently they are big stars, but they have started as many of us, with a regular work or one good project, they got fired, they got lucky, they were hired and after much hard work, they got there, and presently they are President, Chairman and Top executives.

I think that such histories must be shared with users, to incentive them, to teach them and to make such Top executives more human and less mythological. For this reason, I think that LinkedIn should create a space to interview them, sharing it with its networking. For example, once a day, week or month, a LinkedIn anchor would interview one executive live, for one or two hours, its users would ask questions, comments and a conversation would be created - Free of any charge, of course.

LinkedIn as the biggest professional networking should create tools to get its users more involved. This project could also be part of the Generation 2020 and/or the Campus LinkedIn ideas mentioned before.

LinkedIn TV: Why not?

Attached to the idea of interviewing Top executives, LinkedIn could also employ such space to interview HR specialists, to debate international defies, using as LinkedIn classroom, among several other possibilities.

If the project goes well, and its users start to get involved with this new concept, LinkedIn could also lease the space/channel to a third company to develop its contents. LinkedIn could sell publicity spots and this would be the beginning of LinkedIn TV – The first online professional networking TV.

To find sponsors and advertisers should not be a problem, as all marketing executives from all Top companies in the world are LinkedIn members. At the end, LinkedIn will have created a very lucrative tool, attracting new users, making them to spend more time logged in and also having revenues from it.

The official professional networking sponsor

The idea is to be a sponsor or be involved somehow, with international sports events: World Cup, Olympic Games among others. LinkedIn will offer to the event organization its networking to recruit their staff without any cost. LinkedIn will also create promotions to advertise the opening positions in its website.

For example: the Olympic Games of Vancouver 2010 or London 2012 would hire more than 30 thousand positions, among volunteers and regular jobs. The World Cup South Africa 2010 and in Brazil 2014 would need over 35 thousand people, among volunteers and regular jobs. In such great events, where thousand of positions must be filled up, LinkedIn could be the perfect partner, as they could help the committees in both cases: helping them to recruit their employees and also find volunteers.

Small details: Big differences

Be aware that the Spanish language used in Spain is slightly different from the one employed in America. The uses of some verbal senses usual in Spain are not in use in America, as is the case of the imperative sense, for instance. It is not a mistake, but should be replaced to a neutral Spanish, where everybody will be comfortable in use. For example, at No gracias, facturadme 49,95. Facturadme is using the imperative sense, employed in Spain only and it should be better if replaced.

Issues like this, between Spanish from Spain and from America always occur, and for this reason, it is better to work with idiomatic revisions with people from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The same occurs in French and Portuguese, as the Latin languages are more likely to have differences between Europe and America.

Future and Defies

Presently, around 29 million users from a total of 45 million users at LinkedIn are from English speaking countries, almost 65% of its total. When we compare with Facebook community, we realize that 70% of their users are not from English speaking countries. According my point of view, 65% of users coming from English speaking countries it is way too much, and LinkedIn should need to an extra effort to grow in other languages as well, offering its services and platform to as many users as possible. Comparing again, we realize that Facebook is translated to 65 languages and MySpace to 15 languages, so something must be done. The work to translate the LinkedIn platform to different languages is not complex and the benefits justify them.

The four countries that most negatively impressed me at LinkedIn, according the number of users were China, Japan, Russia and Korea. Such countries are among the biggest internet users in the world: 338 million, 94 million, 38 million and 37 million respectively, but at LinkedIn combined, those four countries may have less than 600 thousand users. It means that the potential to grown is those languages are huge, and also, we are facing an idiomatic problem. According my point of view, it may justify the investment to translate the platform in those four new languages in order to increase rapidly the presence of more users from those countries. The other language that I would translate, would be the Arab, as more than 41 millions users are connected to the Internet and less than 400 thousand are members.

In few years, I believe that LinkedIn will reach 100 million users and it will become one of the best networking on the Internet, because it will be composed by professionals, adults, well educated and with an important purchasing power, among other unique qualities.

Different alphabets = Avoiding ghettos

I agree that is not visually ideal when we visit pages that are employing different alphabets. Different languages, sometimes we can decode using our common-sense, but alphabets are more difficult. It is frustrating to enter and try to understand pages in Chinese, Cyrillic, Japanese, Arab, Korean or any other alphabet that we have no clue. In the other hand, if LinkedIn is truly an international networking, a Chinese professional or a Russian executive, may have the same rights than those who speak English and LinkedIn should deal with this issue using all its creativity.

My suggestion is that after the translations to Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arab and Korea is finished, LinkedIn would create a tool that automatically translates such pages to English. For example, if I am registered in English at LinkedIn, when I visited a profile made originally in Chinese or Korean, the page will be automatically translated to English for me. Some fields may be more difficult to translate, but a great percentage could be done. At the beginning, LinkedIn should start with the option to translate to English only, all languages with the option to translate to English, and if it goes well, more options would be offered.

PluggedIN - Company Contests

To encourage companies to create contests and campaigns using the LinkedIn networking and website. Such campaigns should be used with DirectAds tools and other publicity tools. The campaigns could have different shapes and forms, could be used to create promotions/contests in different scales: Continental: in Europe or North America. Regional: in Brazil or Germany. Local: in San Francisco or Paris, for instance. As LinkedIn profits from the web 2.0 benefits, it is possible to identify where the users came from and designing campaigns sur mesure.

One contest that I suggest is to encourage companies to have open door events. For example: Coca-Cola would create a contest, with some specific rules, where some lucky winners would be selected to travel to Atlanta to know the city, the company, visiting the facilities, the museum and spending some time with some executives. The winners would be their guests, and all expenses would be paid by Coca-Cola.

A different campaign would be to encourage a contest where a group of software engineers’ students from the United States would be selected to enjoy one week with Microsoft engineers in their facilities. As I said before, the shape and form may vary, but the goal would be to integrate its members, being a real professional networking. Such promotions could have a great potential in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, in Latin America. Also a great potential in those countries were the number of users are higher than 250 thousand users.

Network Updates: Too long

When we click at home the network and group updates are too long, confuse, and polluted. It could be placed different, more organized and cleaner. A little box like the one used at main page, on the left side would be an alternative. Another option would be the installation of few boxes at the middle of the page, like eBay did on their page would be ideal. See it.

At the Network Updates there are: Status Updates, Group Updates, Recommendations, Questions & Answers, Job Posts and Connection Updates. My advice is if LinkedIn leave those options closed, and just put as a title as I did before, it would be much better. If the user wants to see more, they would just click on the title and all the information would appear. The same applies to the Group Updates too, as it is better to leave just the titles on, but closed, and if there is the curiosity to open them, one click would be enough.

According to my point of view, there is too much unnecessary information placed twice on those updates: Instead place it by time: last week and 2 weeks ago, why not to put by the number of the last 5, 10 or 20 operations? I am proposing it because at the same time that LinkedIn have some very active users, another group of users may have just few activities, for this reason, a time frame reference may not be ideal in this case, but by the number of the last operations.

Profile: Languages and Countries

I do not find where the user could post the languages that they may speak. A languages-speaking space should be created at the users’ profile. LinkedIn could also create a space with the flags of the languages speaking or just to post the languages and the level of knowledge speaking. As an international networking, it is important to emphasize if the user speaks two, three or more languages and I am sure that it is very simple to be added.

Another tool that I would suggest is to ask users what countries they know. A small world map could be created showing where the users traveled. There is a similar tool, at the featured applications called My Travel, but in this case, the difference is that you will share in your profile the places where you went, and not the places where you will be.

Strategic Alliance: Social Networks

Facebook is the biggest social networking on the Internet, and they are constantly offering new tools to their users: games, events, horoscope, pictures, chat and etc. They successfully create a way to retain their users logged in for a long time. How about to create a strategic alliance with them, offering LinkedIn professional profile to their networking?

This is a just a brainstorm idea, I do not analyze well enough to know if it is a smart move from LinkedIn. But the idea is to offer Facebook users the possibility to the creation/sharing of professional profiles online. The same alliance could be implemented with MySpace, Orkut, among other communities.

Strategic Alliances: Brazil and South America

The vision that LinkedIn have in Latin America, is that the company will replace the local HR companies. They do not see LinkedIn as a professional networking only, but as a HR networking. Both, users and HR companies, are looking at LinkedIn as a way to make business and profit from it.

For this reason, most of HR companies in Latin America, and also in North America, would be interested in be a LinkedIn partner or work together somehow. In South America, there are three large groups that may be interest in work with LinkedIn, and I think that would be a good way to enter more aggressively in such region. Catho, Manpower and Bumeran are international groups, with millions of users that should be shared with LinkedIn after a small alliance with them.

Why not accept PayPal?

LinkedIn, as one of the biggest networking on the Internet, could create a strategic alliance/deal with Paypal accepting as form of payment. eBay and PayPal are looking for new partners/associates to continue their expansion, and LinkedIn accepting PayPal as form of payment, could create a possibility to have a strategic alliance with them.

LinkedIn would make public that PayPal is now accepted and in exchange, LinkedIn could have some benefits on eBay campaigns, Skype services, among other possibilities.

Basic Upgrade: 4,95 USD to 9,95 USD

Who’s viewed my profile?
Your profile has been viewed by X people in the last X days.
In the last X days, you have appeared in search results X times.

The Who’s viewed my profile? is a great tool! It is my favorite tool at LinkedIn, because it makes you curious to see who saw your profile, where they are from, where they work, among other questions.

But when you see the options to upgrade your account, I think that a fourth option, more economic, should be created. Actually there are: the Business 24,95 USD, Business Plus 49,95 USD and the Pro 499,95 USD, all valid for one month. I think that a Basic version, valid for one week, charging 4,95 USD to 9,95 USD should be created to incentive new users to discovery LinkedIn. A campaign would be created to promote such event.

Thank you for your time

I know LinkedIn for more than five years and since its beginning I am familiarized with its platform and as you can see at this blog, I have several ideas in how to develop the Brazilian and South American market on LinkedIn. In fact, the ideas are global and can be used in the entire world. I know Brazil and South America and I know LinkedIn and I think that together we can create a lot of new things.

At my blog, I wrote few ideas and brainstorms that may work or may not work. The objective of this work is to create ideas, make projections, visualize where the company will be in five to ten years from now, brainstorming concepts that can be cataloged as stupid or brilliant, it may vary according the point of view employed.

This is just a small sample of my work, among many others ideas that I would like to share with you. From my side, such project is a way to approach LinkedIn and let them know that even without been part of its staff, I want to collaborate and make LinkedIn better and also make them to discovery me.

Currently I live in Montreal, Canada and I am able to travel in order to introduce myself and have a face to face interview with you. I would appreciate if you could recommend this blog to some decision maker.

In life anything is possible. However if we never try, it becomes impossible!

Thank you!