Gratifying to get a “discussion” going. That’s rare thing, these days on blogs – especially smaller non-celebrity blogs. Pretty hard to get people to do what you do and express an opinion – they must worry that it might hurt them if they ever run for political office.

But, it’s even harder to sustain a blog “back-and-forth” discussion like we’ve had here. Thanks for trying to get this issue out on Twitter, too.

Nicely done, sir.

I think that LinkedIn is making a huge mistake in not bringing its search facility up to web standards.. One of the factors fueling Facebook buzz is the use of its robust search capabilities to supplant google. LinkedIn needs to get on board.

Wow, I just went to the LinkedIn NSA Group – and replicated your search, and sure enough, I do find both Orvel Ray’s and Charlotte Stallings’ Discussions. As you say, that’s even more surprising than I could ever imagine.

So, does anyone, anywhere know how to communicate with the anti-social networking folks at LinkedIn? We’ve tried everything – sending them emails, asking people on Twitter, searching the best we can. LinkedIn – is there any way to get your attention?!!

If I search for International Speakers Network using the NSA Discussions Search box it quickly pulls up all of the discussions you mention in your post (see http://twitpic.com/14778p). The difference between your failure and my success? Capitals. I capitalized my search terms whereas you didn’t.

So I’m giving this one to you; any search function that provides totally different results based upon capitalization needs a serious overhaul!

Yes, ISN’s reputation precedes them even on Google. What Google can’t give you that LinkedIn could (if they cared to fix their search mechanisms) is the trusted, experienced responses from people in a specific group – in this case, the National Speakers Association. Google gets everyone’s response, but often way too many and not people I trust. But, as always, love to hear your opinion, Mr. Gray.