Thomas,

Great insights and recommendations. Linkedin seems to have taken the approach so many others have — to adopt “best practices” in design without understanding the social differences and fundamentals behind them. A lot of folks make the — understandable — mistake of thinking that by implementing common social interaction design solutions, the social practices will follow. That’s to mistake the solution for the problem and opportunity, and in design terms puts the cart before the horse.

Linkedin really ought to take a good look at the user and social practices unique to business networking and passive job hunting. How do users engage in these activities differently in professional contexts (from, say, FB, which is the obvious inspiration in using system messaging to promote actual interaction and conversation). Disclosure, of control, self-presentation, and expert contributions should be approached in ways unique to the professional networking space. What you describe as flow, for example, is spot on. Or in Q/A, which Linkedin very smartly recognized would both surface experts and structure conversation to be both helpful and self-promotional.

I don’t see Linkedin taking advantage of past work relationships, of driving opportunities for contractors/consultants/freelancers, of, say, building teams on the fly on mutually-compatible and reinforcing skills and trust relationships among networked members. Both the facets and the availability, interests and needs, of professional users differ from the friendly but non-purposive interactions on Facebook.

Linkedin should start from the social, not from design.

cheers,adrian