Before the robot overlords arrive

Apparently the army of corporate professionals (read: marketers) that use LinkedIn as their personal playground to spam each other with advertorial and inspirational nonsense — think sausage machine eating it’s own output — are complaining that people are starting to use LinkedIn as a — gasp — social network. I know. Amazing, right?

Life found a way.

You would have to have been blind not to notice Microsoft slowly pivoting LinkedIn from a glorified address book into a social network — because of course they don’t have one. Of course the regular users of LinkedIn have immediately jumped on the ability to post short updates to share personal stories and experiences, rather than regurgitate their employer’s message.

Relatable stories. Honest experiences. Everything the old world of marketing and sales knows they cannot replicate.

If there’s one thing the social internet has done — and this is the marketer’s own fault — it’s train everybody’s sense of smell. We can all smell an agenda from a mile away. We also stop listening as soon as the mansplaining starts.

The marketers are pretty mad about it.

Their pretend world is falling to pieces around them. You might think they would already have figured out that contrived, invented, dictated stories pale in comparison with the real thing. The data has always been there.

Perhaps the real change is that people don’t like being told any more — they prefer to find out for themselves. Maybe it has happened just in time — before our robot overlords arrive.

What do you mean, they’re already here?