LinkedIn's UK strategy

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0:41We look forward to seeing you there. Although LinkedIn is all about online networking, don't underestimate the power of being in person to building relationships.

0:55That's Janine Chamberlain, who is head of LinkedIn in the UK. LinkedIn is of course the social network for professionals. I've come to meet her at their brand new Experience Centre in central London, a dedicated space designed to foster collaboration, engagement and knowledge sharing in the evolving world of work. While LinkedIn may be all about online networking, in our hybrid world it wants a stake in real life interactions too. Being in person is really key to building trusted relationships and it helps to improve collaboration and it leads to faster decision making as well. Just recently I was at a networking event where I met somebody who is an important relationship for me in the context of our business and one of the things that stood out for me is that at the end of our conversation I got this person's business card with their personal mobile phone number and the message if you ever need anything, give me a call.

1:56Now, I think if we had been networking online or only connecting virtually, that would have never happened. And really that for me is the power of in-person networking.

2:09I'm Dougal Shaw, and this is the Business Leader podcast, where we discuss and dissect the business stories and trends that really matter. In this episode, we're meeting Janine Chamberlain, head of LinkedIn in the UK. It's a chance to learn about their new experience centre which is where I met her. It's designed to help professionals navigate the future of hybrid work. Its centerpiece is a huge theater that holds 150 people, but it also has meeting rooms, breakout areas, and an open plan work area, which is very nice with plants everywhere. It's designed for curated events, leadership roundtables, and things like interactive workshops on AI.

2:48The center will also enable better knowledge sharing of LinkedIn data insights and access to experts across issues like hiring, B2B sales and marketing. I sat with Janine in one of the quieter meeting areas and we began by discussing a report on modern work preferences that LinkedIn has produced. What kind of surprising things have you found? Well, it's a good question. I don't know if it is surprising, the kind of things that we found. But as I think there is this swinging pendulum between hybrid work, remote work, at-home work. What our report found is that UK professionals are interested in coming together in person, but what they're looking for is for that time to be really meaningful, really intentional, and to kind of add value.

3:37So there's a number of meetings that professionals believe can easily be done virtually. The usual check-ins on a weekly basis, status updates on projects, But then there's other meetings that are much more effective and much more powerful when you actually do come together in person, whether that is a business strategy session or leadership discussions or actually meeting customers. Like we found that a lot of people see real value in being face to face when it comes to kind of doing business with other businesses. And is that reflected across the board? Do you get the same kind of opinions from C-suite people down to lower levels in the organization?

4:20Or is there any kind of difference of opinion? I think there's not necessarily a difference of opinion, but I think for C-suite leaders, it's quite complicated right now to decide, you know, what's the right balance between finding that productivity, making sure that people are engaged. We know that being in person drives better engagement, but also still wanting to offer that flexibility because we also know that professionals are looking for flexibility. And C-suite leaders have to make that decision around, you know, what's the kind of right policy that I put in place to make sure that I don't lose my top talent for another employer that might offer more flexibility, but still get the best out of that in-person connection.

5:06And LinkedIn is obviously, you know, a virtual network. It's online. So why do you care about this? What's your vested interest? So I think that virtual networks are complemented very well by the in-person connection, or rather, maybe it's the other way around. I think that a lot of connection, a lot of networking and kind of relationship building, let's put it that way, starts with a face-to-face meeting. And then from there, it often kind of transitions into more virtual connection. And that's, I think, where LinkedIn complements networking incredibly well. So it is in our interest to make sure that people want to connect with other people and then continue those conversations offline or online rather.

5:49It's a kind of modern dilemma. I'm just thinking I have this sometimes that on LinkedIn, someone will suggest they could be your connection and you think I've never met this person in real life, but they do sound interesting. And I'm not sure whether to connect or not. And for a while I had a rule saying I'll only connect with this person if I've met them in real life. So sometimes you'd organize a coffee date in order just to meet them. Yeah, I think so. It's really interesting that you say that because I would say that my personal experience is that it has shifted a little bit in the last, you know, think about the COVID time.

6:16We all were working from home and we had to rely on virtual networking more so, much more so than we were ever used to before that time. And so I think it can happen either way. A connection can start online and then move into a face-to-face world. And I, like you, look at those kind of connection requests that come in. And if I think, well, this is an interesting person that I would really like to get to know better because they do some interesting work or they have the same interests as me, I'm often inclined to accept the connection request and then build that relationship from there. And talking about meeting people, we're obviously today in this new Experience Centre in Farringdon Central London.

6:57So tell me about how this place came about and who it's designed for and what people can do here. Yeah, so we wanted to build a place where we can bring both our customers as well as our members together in a physical space. As we've seen from the research, that being in person really helps with collaboration, It kind of helps bring new ideas together. And so this is like a manifestation, I suppose, of a bit of a dream for us to create a space that really attracts people to come together and want to spend that in-person time. So who can come here? So the space is built for customers, for our members, particularly when we run events.

7:43So for example, in a couple of weeks from now, we have an event that is organized by our social impact team together with an external organization called 10 ,000 Black Interns. We will bring people into the space and we will do what we call our LinkedIn coaches sessions. We actually help people build their LinkedIn profile and kind of find the best possible chance to, you know, find their dream job eventually. And so it's a space for everyone. It's not going to be an open space where everybody can just walk into the door. It's around hosting events for members, customers, and of course, for our own employees as well.

8:19And I've been looking around, you've got all kinds of things like a media studio where you can do filming for influencers. There's a photo booth where you can take your own optimized profile picture for LinkedIn. So what's the idea of these things? Yeah, so two separate things. I would say on the profile picture, we know that, you know, optimizing your LinkedIn profile starts with a really good headshot. And so what our photo booth offers is anybody who visits the Experience Center can take a really high quality professional headshot that they can then put on their profile or on your company website, wherever you wish to use that picture.

8:55Video, I think, is really interesting. It's like the fastest growing content on LinkedIn. Our viewership is going up 36 % year over year. And so we have a studio here, both for our internal news team, but also we work with some of our customers to create high quality professional video content in a really sort of decent setting. Although I'm a big believer of using your phone and, you know, filming something in a less professional way, it really helps to create some high quality content that we can put out on the platform. What kind of opportunities could there be for medium and small businesses to use a place like this?

9:34Yeah, so we actually host rather a lot of events for our customers. And as a company, we work with companies of every size. I think this is a great place for companies when there are events that are tailored towards the interests of that company, whether that's around recruitment, whether it's around marketing, whether it's around, you know, how do you improve your sales team's ability to build those connections, etc. So we will be hosting events for companies of all sizes, really. So keep an eye out on LinkedIn to see these things advertised. Let's move on to talk a little bit more about you.

10:09Can you just explain about how you got to this point in your career at LinkedIn? Yeah. So I've been at LinkedIn for 16 and a bit years. starting in 2008 at the company I had absolutely no idea what the sort of impact and what the growth of this company was was going to be like and really what got me into the company I would say is is very different from what I do today so I started back in the day we called it a trafficker which is kind of a strange word now but I was an ad trafficker so putting advertisements online counting the clicks and the impressions very interesting and exciting work and really drew me into LinkedIn because it was a skill set that at the time was relatively unique and LinkedIn had a capability to target audiences that was very unique back in you know 2008.

11:00That's what got me into LinkedIn and then from there obviously the company has grown rather a lot to put it into perspective. When I joined we had about 25 million members globally. Today we have more than 40 million in the UK and we have more than a billion globally. So the company has grown very fast and as a result of that there have been opportunities along the way for me you know to really have if I steal some words of an author a squiggly career. I've been able to move between different parts of our business from our advertising side to our sort of recruitment software side from being very operational to more focused on sales and our customers and ultimately had an opportunity to grow into the country manager role at LinkedIn.

11:47And because it is an American owned company, and obviously owned by Microsoft, ultimately, how much latitude do you have in the UK to be creative and try out your own ideas? Or are you mainly executing strategy that's come from America? I think it really depends what function, I suppose, you look at, right? So in the UK, we don't build the product. So the product is built in the US and we are here to represent in the UK market. But when we look at our marketing campaigns, and of course, the way that we engage with our customers, for example, now with this experience center, we actually have quite a lot of freedom in this region to make sure that it is tailored to the audience that we have in the UK specifically.

12:30And the experience center, I believe, is the first one in the LinkedIn empire. So is that an idea that you've initiated that might spread elsewhere? So the team in the UK, I'm not going to claim credit that it was my idea, but definitely the team in the UK started working on this. It's been sort of a long time coming. So I think the first time we started talking about it must be more than two and a half years ago. And then, you know, it sort of evolved and we started working together also with the team in the US to kind of come up with the best way to design the space and what would really ultimately, you know, what would it be for?

13:03Who would it be for? But yeah, there's a big team involved here that really was very thoughtful about what are we going to do with this space? How do we bring to life what LinkedIn offers? Because we have a lot of different things that we offer to our members and to our customers. And how can we really build a space where all of that can be showcased, essentially? One thing that's definitely clear is that LinkedIn has changed so much, I would say, in the last three years. That it used to be a place where people thought you would go because you were looking for a job. and it's become much more of a network where creatives post and try to build a following partly i would say including from my own experience it's partly maybe connected a bit to what's happened to twitter that more people have migrated to linkedin because they see it as a kind of safer place where there's maybe more mature conversations happening but has that kind of happened organically or have linkedin been trying to sort of coax it in this direction would you say so i think so if i go back to what i was saying earlier so i've been at the company for 16 years.

14:03Lots have changed, but actually what's always been very consistent is both the mission and the vision of LinkedIn. And I know that sounds a little bit American, but it's genuinely something that every day we strive to achieve. And so our mission is to connect professionals and help them be more successful in their careers. And our vision is to create economic opportunity for every single person in the world of work. One of the reasons why I've been here so long is because that has never changed. And I think it's really inspiring and the work is still not done. So the evolution, I suppose, of the platform is really focused on now that we have a very large number of professionals that have connected on LinkedIn, how do we help them really be more productive in their jobs?

14:51And how do we help people be more successful in their careers? And I think that's where it becomes really important and that everybody shares their knowledge with their network, that networking element, obviously understanding what's happening in this company or that company, as well as all the addition of, for example, the learning courses that we've added onto the platform so that if I have all these tools, I know what job I'm interested in. I know what the skills are required for that job. I know some people who work at that company and can give me some guidance and I have access to learn those skills to get me into that job.

15:25ultimately that's, you know, going to help to deliver our vision. I was speaking to one of your colleagues on the tour, and she was pointing out that a surprisingly huge number of fake accounts are being kind of vetted and got rid of every day. And AI is helping to do that to make sure that it's genuine people on the platform. So it's quite a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make it what it is. Yeah, both, I would say human defenses and of course, automated defenses to make sure that anything that is not in line with our policy and a fake profile is not in line with our policies, that we stop that from even reaching the platform.

16:00Yes. Just speaking again as a LinkedIn user, one big change I see maybe, especially in the last year, is that you're getting far more entrepreneurs and company leaders posting personally about their business journey and giving what you might say is a more kind of authentic feel, including talking about the hardships and the things that go wrong, the failures on the business journey? Have you spotted that? And is that an organic thing that has just happened and that then you can promote a bit because you think it's a good idea? Or do you just let these things evolve? Yeah, so I have seen it too.

16:31And especially what I think is interesting, there's more business leaders, including CEOs of large companies that are posting video on LinkedIn, for example, to talk about their, you know, earnings reports and things like that. So I think that's a really interesting development. It's rather organic. So I think that over the last five years, if I take it to a slightly longer timeframe, especially during the times where people were shifting their work to their homes, that personal and professional kind of boundary started to blend a little bit more. And I think you can see that in the way that people are sharing more vulnerable content, if you will, like the hardships.

17:11And, you know, I think it can be a lonely place for people to be in a very senior leadership position, to have an ability to share with a network that goes through similar things, I think is only very useful. So that's not something that is steered, but that is created organically. And I think we're very clear that LinkedIn is a professional network, but also aware that, you know, there are some kind of boundaries that overlap between personal and professional. With AI obviously presents so many opportunities and you've said already how it can help to spot fake profiles but I've started to see already that people use AI on social media to auto-generate comments for example to help drive engagement or you can use AI to help you figure out what kind of posts you should write, what kind of topics are good today, what kind of words should you use.

17:59Is there a danger that it's going to push the kind of humans out if we just let AI do too much on social media? So, I mean, look, I'm not actually here to maybe comment on the exact dangers. I think that's a really interesting conversation. The way that I would look at AI, and particularly the way that we've deployed AI on LinkedIn, is to offer people a starting point for what they are doing. So rather than starting from a completely blank page, which I think for many people is really daunting and it kind of stops people from actually even going there. AI can be that tool that helps you with a few pointers that you can then personalize and really make your own.

18:41And actually what we can see from a skills perspective, although of course AI skills are in high demand and the demand for that is growing very fast, also people with skills like we can see a lot of development there. But the skills that have consistently been in high demand over the last many years are the human skills, the skills that we can only bring as humans and cannot be replaced by AI, such as communication, creativity, collaboration, building teams. So there's, I think, something really interesting rather in having AI as a tool to augment parts of our job that we don't like as much or that are very repetitive and time consuming or that are a bit daunting, like that blank page.

19:27And then it is actually so important to bring that human connection to the AI to make it your own. And so, yeah, I think that humans in that sense, it's going to be all about being human. Which ties in with the Experience Centre, I suppose, which is a place for humans to meet. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely not a place for AI to meet, for sure.

19:53you've been listening to business leader with me Dougal Shaw speaking to Janine Chamberlain who is head of LinkedIn in the UK for more business case studies and masterclasses please check out businessleader.co.uk if you like this podcast don't forget to follow us wherever you listen so you don't miss future episodes and if you lead a medium-sized business in the UK and are ambitious to grow into a large company then you can also check out our business Leader website to learn more about our membership offer.

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