It was an innocent enough question posted on LinkedIn. “Know anything about International Speakers Network (ISN) out of Nashville?” A chorus of warnings came back to her. The problem is – you’ll likely never see them.
Why won’t you see those warnings? Well, we promise it’s not a conspiracy to protect the International Speakers Network.
The fact is you can only see this question (and all of its vigorous responses) if you are on LinkedIn. And then, only if you are a member of the National Speaker’s Association Group on LinkedIn. And then, only if you happen to have noticed (or been notified) that the question was posted.
More importantly, if you don’t meet all of those above criteria, you can’t even find the information by searching it on LinkedIn, even if you’re a member of the NSA group – and even if you’re in the “discussion area” of the NSA group). You can’t even find it by doing a “site:” search on Google:
Charlotte “international speakers” site:linkedin.com
It’s just blocked. And, it’s pretty important information. Not just to Charlotte Stallings, a former Vice President at Ameriprise and now the owner of Getting Smart! LLC, but also to other unsuspecting folks.
Membership has its privileges
In a few hours, no less than 15 NSA members warned Charlotte to steer clear of this clearly questionable company:
Do not under any circumstances work with this group or anyone who has ever worked for ISN!
To loosely quote the movie Forest Gump… “Run Charlotte run!!!”
Hold them at arms length and always keep a hand on your wallet.
Ditto, ditto, ditto. Avoid them like the plague.
Those are just of few of the cascade of credible warnings that greeted Charlotte’s query. In fact, this was the most responded to discussion in the entire NSA group. However, if you’re not a member of the NSA LinkedIn group – forget it, you’ll never get this information.
Establishing entrance requirements and protecting the membership of a LinkedIn group is clearly defensible. Keeping the information itself under lock and key, we think, is not. It’s something LinkedIn and other social networking sites will need to address.
Our last blog article showed some of the newly discovered search power of Twitter – What Google Doesn’t Know Will Surprise You.
It’s important to note that virtually all of the information in Twitter is searchable. Only some of the information in LinkedIn is searchable. And, almost none of the information in Facebook and MySpace is searchable. Clearly, that is an issue.
Information is power – but only if you can get to it. In the upcoming “Gunfight at the Social Media Corral,” the real winners will be those that figure out how to make their information available and searchable. That might be Twitter’s biggest strength right now – and Facebook and LinkedIn’s biggest challenge.
They Can Run, but They Can’t Hide
Does that mean that the International Speakers Network will get away Scott-free?! Nope. If you do a Google search for them, you will find any number of other warnings about them.
You’ll see a web site entirely devoted to their shenanigans, an article we wrote (A Few Simple, Smart Online Shopping Rules) and any number of other rip-off references.
You just won’t find Charlotte’s warnings on LinkedIn – and that’s too bad.
14 comments ↓
Michael,
Once again you are providing great content. Thanks for this information!
To your success,
Kevin
and http://www.kovachcommunications.com
Solid content Michael. Now if we can only get people to investigate before they invest. . .
Thank you, Michael! You’re the Sheriff of OK Corral!
Thanks Kevin, Bill and Pat,
One of the reasons we posted is because the content on the LinkedIn Groups Discussion area is so good – we’d like to see it be searchable – or, at least, offer searchable and private options.
Michael:
Damn! Good snooping, Sherlock! I wish I had gotten advice from you before I just sent $40,000 to my lost uncle who has been trapped in Liberia. He needed the money to get back to Colorado. Oh, well, I’m sure it’s legit, and he promises to give me $80,000 when he gets here.
Oops, Sorry John,
That lost uncle just might not be part of your real lineage.
For an entertaining journey through the scammiest of the scams on the Net – go to Quatloos.com (http://www.quatloos.com/) – as they say, they are “A public educational website covering a wide variety of financial scams & frauds
including wacky “prime bank” frauds, exotic foreign currency scams, offshore investment frauds, tax scams, “Pure Trust” structures and more…”
Next time, OK, John.
Just started following you on twitter at the recommendation of @DarlaDixon. Glad I did if these are the sort of articles I can expect! Great info!
Thanks
Megan
[...] LinkedIn’s “Discussions” accompany each LinkedIn “Group.” They are the equivalent of the general “Answers” section in LinkedIn, but you must be a member of that group to participate in those discussions. (We wrote more about the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of group “exclusivity” in “Run, Charlotte, Run.”) [...]
I was just approached by ISN and before I sent them the membership fee of $525 I decided to investigate them. This led me to your page. Thanks so much!
Margie Seyfer
Thanks Megan – and omigosh, Margie,
You wouldn’t believe the number of people we’ve run into in workshops, consulting or this blog who’ve either already been ripped off by these yokels, or who just missed being ripped by them.
The sad thing is that they’re now adding social media to their mix of seedy selling tactics, trying to friend me on Facebook and link to me on LinkedIn. Don’t they ever search their own company name on the Internet?!!
Glad we could halt that check, Margie.
Brenda Keefer used ot work with ISN. She lefet shortly after I got my money back from them (thank you American Express) and ISN sent out a tattle on her leaving. Now she is in business for herself and up to the old tricks. A speaker friend sent me a message on Linked In from her: “Looking for a speaker on economy for event in the fleet trucking industry” on Speaker Site group.
Beware, this is the same thing under a spinoff and different name
Thanks Jim,
It’s amazing how many people we’ve run into who’ve been ripped off by either ISN, or Brenda and her mimic of a company. How do they keep in business?
I’m convinced that access to information like LinkedIn and other social networking sites allows will finally do them in.
[...] thread, but people emailed me directly, while others called to warn me. Two great folks, Michael Benidt and Sheryl Kay chimed in and wrote about all of this on their own [...]
[...] We bumped into Charlotte’s Stallings again this week out on the speaking trail. We hadn’t seen her for some months and it has been almost 11 months now since we wrote about her in Run, Charlotte, Run!! [...]
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