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LinkedIn will destroy this group once and for all. IF YOU VALUE THIS GROUP, IT MAY BE THE ONLY WAY I CAN TALK WITH YOU IN THE FUTURE. +++ WHAT THE F**K? +++ NO MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS If the link fails today due to traffic, please try again. +++ SPAM WINS Did you know you can pay someone to spam LinkedIn? You can. And we’re f**ked. +++ WHICH IS WORSE? Either way, the Medical Devices Group Will Be Destroyed. +++ TIME TO GIVE UP? You and I have spent too much time building this community. +++ HERE’S THE PLAN 1) Join https://medgroup.biz/MDG-SITE so we can still talk. 2) I just set aside $10,000 to completely update https://MedicalDevicesGroup.net. “Nice to do” just became “must do.” 3) Our in-person 10x meetings just became more important. For now, I will host three of them. 4) I just set aside another $1,000 to completely update https://MedicalDeviceEvents.com. It will support 10x events and have a true Medical Device Events calendar that features every single live medical device event I discover. Bookmark it. Request a brochure to get on that mailing list too. +++ I’m out of space. If you want to help, my email is JHage@MedicalDevicesGroup.net. โน๏ธ Sad day for us. โน๏ธ โ Joe Please visit https://medgroup.biz/MDG-SITE now. Joe Hage Plus, in those rare occasions when members actually do click on spam and the discussion is deleted, that also makes for a bad customer experience. This cop-and-robbers game is no way to treat your customers. Surely you agree. Joe Hage In the 6ยฝ years I’ve led the group, somewhere between 60 and 70 thousand people have willingly shared their contact information with me. And as impressive as that number is, it’s but a sixth of the size of this community. And that took 2,732 days to accomplish. There’s no way I’ll encourage another 60 thousand to take that action before the “Medical Devices Group ON LINKEDIN” is a fraction of its present self. But for those who care enough, maybe they’ll come over. And we can continue a vibrant Medical Devices Group, unencumbered by the random workings of a capricious landlord. So. That’s my thinking. โ๏ธ Joe Hage So item three there, “This LinkedIn community, each Tuesday morning,” is one of my venues. It will continue to do so until LinkedIn shuts groups or decides to “evict me,” or remove me from their platform. To be clear, I don’t expect these draconian measures, but recognize this is their platform and they can do whatever they like. As a paying subscriber or no, they can “No Shirt, No Service” me (or you) any time they like and without notice. Joe Hage Joe Hage Joe Hage The “Joe Hage brand,” to me, conveys these values: Joe Hage ๐ฃ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ ๐ฒ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ฝ … and she replied, Dear Sir, But would like to inform you that these are auto generated messages and we are not sending it intentionally. We will investigate and make sure you will not receive such messages. Joe Hage I built that site back in 2012 (now in desperate need of a facelift) as a way to support this group with webinars, blogs, videos, and other social tools LinkedIn never made available to Groups. My new approach will put the https://MedicalDevicesGroup.net site at the center of the community, giving less attention to the LinkedIn platform which has steadily stripped away management tools since (ironically) my birthday, October 14, 2015. What I learned earlier today (at 2:30 a.m.; I couldn’t sleep) was the final straw. Without the ability to protect you from spam, I believe the value erodes quickly. So I’m building where I can control the product. Not the other way around. We (you, me, engaged commenters, and readers all). Joe Hage Now, what about everyone who joined this group and does not take that action. Should I never speak with them again? No, I don’t think so. But I’m clearly stating THIS experience won’t reflect my true brand values the way THAT experience will. By telling everyone, “Look, these are my constraints, so please forgive my relative lack of communication and potential for rampant spam,” those who: So, my alarmist announcement entitled, Joe Hage “It” decided, when I hit my 990th character in my reply to you, I was done. And that bold I used above? I had to go to a third-party app called yaytext.com to even do ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต! (Italics, also courtesy of yaytext.) Why these arbitrary restrictions? So, to finish my mid-sentence point from my comment above, We (you, me, engaged commentators, and readers alike) have invested too much time and energy to let this unsearchable trove of solid, helpful, information just go away. It’s worth fighting for. And as the leader of the group, I’m going to fight that battle for whomever chooses to follow. To the rest, I bid a sad farewell. It’s time we moved our online community to a safer neighborhood. Joe Hage It ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ฏ’๐ต be spam-free any longer. It ๐ฎ๐ข๐บ ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ด ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ค๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ข๐ณ๐บ to curate intelligent conversations with medical device thought leaders. But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to give up, and it doesn’t mean I’m willing to abandon one of Joe Hage’s sub-brands, “The Medical Devices Group.” Joe Hage Joe Hage We did create a medical device community worth something. It is meaningful to subscribers, some of whom thank me for giving them a window into the medical device industry they otherwise would miss. +++ Inviting subscribers to take an extra step (give me your contact information at https://medgroup.biz/MDG-SITE) is a commitment ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ซ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ช๐ต๐บ won’t make. And I get it. It’s easier to just get “whatever I get from LinkedIn” because I’m already a member there. I come to LinkedIn for other reasons, not just the Medical Devices Group. Joe Hage I used to have 4,000 characters in which to communicate a cogent thought each Tuesday morning. Now it’s 1,959. I heard it may decrease to 1,300 including subject line. * For reference, I already spent 1,833 characters up until the asterisk here. Now I’ve learned this weekly privilege, to communicate with the group, will go away. I seek a workaround. I already use https://medgroup.biz/drip as my email provider and know how to send weekly communications completely under my control. And I like the freedom. If I had my way, I’d be able to use Drip to communicate with this community. But that would require members to give me that privilege, which is what my https://medgroup.biz/MDG-SITE link requests. Those who share their information there are explicitly telling me, “Yes, I value this community.” Joe Hage Jason Shryock, you’re right. It wasn’t. It was 3 a.m. and โ let’s just say โ my already low filter was even lower upon learning this development. Plus LinkedIn doesn’t let you edit. ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ Julie Omohundro If you have concluded that unmoderated Group spam will soon be tarnishing your brand, why are you remaining as administrator, rather than disassociating yourself from the tarnished Group? If you are remaining as administrator, why are you bidding Group members a sad farewell? Was this post inspired by a notification from LinkedIn that Group owners will no longer be able to send out announcements or moderate postings for spam? Or are you saying that you have decided to stop posting weekly announcements to the Group, and to stop moderating it for spam posts, but that you will continue as administrator and leave the Group open? Julie Omohundro Rex Urschler Derek White Derek White Like many in this group, we do not blame you or have any negative feelings towards your โbrandโ as a result of LinkedIn policies or (poor) interface. Patrick CrookStatus Chen Sirkis David Snyder Dave Sheppard Mark C Adams ELLIE HU Leonard Neatu, MD, EMBA Derek White Ken Ishiguro David V. Reynolds Vignesh B Jason Shryock BHARAT GOKAL Wade Nelson Bradley Persson Dov Kivel Niel Leon Mike Borrello Dipl.-Ing. EUR-ING Detlef G. Reddig Del Fredricks Marked as spam
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