Companies under the 'Truth Lens'

LinkedIn has been adding features and making site tweaks a lot lately, and I think, overall, they've been pretty good improvements.

What's interesting for a marketer or corporate communications person is the

 that is presented when a company is followed, one of the new features available.  When you follow a company, you can get updates (either by email or just in the update stream on the site) about when people are hired, when they leave, when they're promoted, when jobs are posted, etc.  If you're looking for a job, working at an agency who deals with a few different clients, or many other situations where it's handy to keep track of companys and people-- this is a pretty good feature.

What this means for the spin-masters (PR, Corp Comms, Agencies, Marketing, HR included) is interesting:  You can't spin change.  If all of the sudden 30 people from your development team start dropping like flies, joining other firms, changing jobs, changing titles-- one could interpret that as turmoil.  A spin master could say "Well, we've just had a lot of changes and turnover."-- except that that same stream would show people getting hired, promoted, updating titles, job descriptions, etc.  Companies are now on display more than ever.

This is a

 that is pointing at a company, and really, there's nothing a company can do-- since all the data is really just representing what's happening to individuals within the collective.  Something to think about when you update your profile next:  People are watching.

Note: You can change your own privacy settings to not allow changes to be communicated to your network, however a company doesn't have that kind of granular control over what is shared. (yet)