An experiment in using LinkedIn Pulse for blogging

Last year I rather publicly deleted my LinkedIn profile and then, just before launching my consultancy business, hastily resurrected it. This was entirely for pragmatic reasons in the same way that I also using Google Apps for Work and continue to use Twitter despite their IPO-induced shenanigans.

However, since their acquisition of Lynda.com in April, I’ve actually been pretty impressed in (what seems like) the new direction LinkedIn are heading. Instead of being a glorified, shiny front end for a digital address book, they’re actually making life easier for professionals. I can honestly say it’s providing value for me that I don’t get elsewhere.

Take LinkedIn Pulse, for example. I was pretty unhappy when they pulled the previous iteration of this, as I found it a useful place to search on specific keywords. However, what they’ve replaced it with (‘up to speed in one news feed’) is a pretty decent blogging platform and discovery service. It allows you to serve up content specifically tailored for a particular audience in a place that they’re more likely to see it.

On my train journey home from London just now I wrote a post on LinkedIn entitled From Open Badges to learning pathways. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while it’s nothing earth-shatteringly new. But for those new to badges, or for those not from a learning/education/teaching background, it may be of help. Sometimes it’s explaining things that seem almost self-evident that can be most useful.

I’ll be curious to see how it goes down. LinkedIn Pulse seems like a useful tool to target a specific audience. But you needn’t worry about this blog: I certainly won’t be stopping my posts here anytime soon!

CC BY Sheila Scarborough