DISQUS

Julie McKown · 8 months ago

Hello, David:

We’d like to thank you for your support of DigitalNow and Fusion Productions, and for the generous praise you offered in this post – in spite of your strong personal feelings around your recent experience with our LinkedIn community.

I’d also like to apologize for any delay you experienced in receiving a response from us when you first submitted your LinkedIn request. As you can imagine, we are all hopping as we prepare and wrap-up DigitalNow. This was especially true this year as we worked up to the last minute to create and develop as many off-site participation methods as possible, in order to accommodate the many people who wanted to be with us in Orlando, but could not due to financial constraints.

As you know, DigitalNow provides an opportunity for association executives to gather together and be part of an intimate community of their peers. Like any professional group, they have concerns and issues that are unique to them as CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs, Executive Directors, board members, and other executive positions.

Each year we diligently seek to strike a balance that provides association executives with the dedicated forum they desire, while also including key staff members, critical service providers, and educators – all of whom make DigitalNow possible. That community composition is what creates such value for our attendees.

We certainly are not trying to create a “country club” at DigitalNow. It is not a restricted community; it is a dedicated one. Our mission has always been to create an intimate association executive community experience for our attendees, and that is why they keep coming back year after year. Our advisory group and the community have encouraged us to remain committed to creating and maintaining that environment – and that is what has given DigitalNow its strength and longevity.

We sincerely appreciate your participation in past DigitalNow conferences as a panel member and an accompanying staff member of PMI –a highly valued Fusion client with a long-standing DigitalNow presence. We do check our records as we respond to LinkedIn requests, and as we understand it, you are no longer with PMI; we also consulted your LinkedIn profile which states that you are currently an Adjunct Professor and Founder and CTO of a privately held company. We understand that positions change, and we described the nature of the community in our LinkedIn group description, with the intent of minimizing any misunderstandings.

We honor your expertise and your past participation in DigitalNow – we in no way consider you an “undesirable element.” To the contrary – we invite you to follow us on Twitter (user name "digitalnow"), participate on our blog (http://www.digitalnowblog.com), download videos and slides from our conference web site (http://www.digitalnowlive.com), or subscribe to our YouTube network (http://www.fusionproductionsnetwork.com) or Flickr photostream.

We’ve created myriad avenues for everyone to glean value and contribute in a way that is meaningful and easy for them. In fact, we’d be happy to set up a LinkedIn group on virtual communities or some other topic that is of unique and specific interest to you and your peers.

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to address your concerns. At Fusion Productions, we value all of our relationships, and I personally strive to make my interactions with others respectful and considerate. As always, I am available to you at any time if you’d like to discuss this further. Just drop me a note at jmckown@fusionproductions.com.

Sincerely,

Julie McKown
Fusion Productions
DigitalNow Team member

Lindy Dreyer · 8 months ago

Dave, I had the same reaction when I was rejected from the Digital Now LinkedIn group. Boo. After reading Julie's carefully crafted response, I can say that I do respect the right of their community to self-select its members. The choice to alienate a few folks on the fringe in favor of focusing on their core group is legitimate, if not my preference when I give strategic advice about outposts liked LinkedIn.

And that goes back to your idea about creating online community versus a country club. The thing is, the community for Digital Now is online regardless of whether or not we're allowed into the LinkedIn group. By limiting entrance in such a public outpost, they are really limiting their ability to energize fans like us. Why make Twitter and Flickr open, but not LinkedIn? (I think I know the answer, I just don't buy it.)

Plus, the community will police itself, so there's not much risk in letting us in. Just my two cents.