Recently I got an alert on LinkedIn that someone viewed my profile. I knew who this person was as they were a connection. Well, I thought they were one, for when I looked at their profile we were no longer connected. My guess was they viewed my profile solely for the purpose to remove the connection between us, and yes, as you may guess there’s a long story here that I will purposely not share.

What this person didn’t realize, and many others do not as well, is that you can remove someone as a connection on the business social networking site without them even knowing it. It is not completely obvious that you can do so, however. As I have known about it for years and maybe even did it once or twice myself, I will share my stealth disconnect secret in the wide open here.

The Steps to Disconnect

Here’s the steps to remove a LinkedIn connection using a standard desktop/laptop Web browser.

1. Navigate to LinkedIn.com, select My Network in the top navigation bar, then under Manage my network click on Connections.

2. Search and scroll, but do not click – the key here is to not open someone’s profile, rather scroll to it in the list of connections. You can try entering a partial name to search, but do not click on their name. If you’re unsure, simply scroll to the bottom of your connections, which may take a while, then use Ctrl-F (on the PC) or Command-F (on the Mac) to find the name of the contact.

For this exercise, I chose my friend and long-time The Hot Iron reader Gary. Don’t worry, I won’t actually disconnect from you!

3. Click the ellipsis (the 3 dots) to the far right of their entry on the list, which will display the option to Remove connection, and click it.

4. You will be presented with a pop-up to confirm to Remove Connection. As the message says, they won’t know that you did. Click Remove to proceed, or Cancel if you don’t want to, as I did.

You will receive a confirmation message when complete, and your connection count will be one less.

To Remove or To Not Remove Connections

This is not the first time I talked about removing LinkedIn connections, as it first came up for me over 8 years ago in this post on how I removed them then. As you may guess, the functional process is much different now. But in re-reading this original post (and adding an editor’s note on its now-outdated content) the reasons for removing connection remain the same, both in what I stated as well as comments to the post. Nothing is forever, as I mentioned in that post, and it certainly holds today. Even the “wise man” who told me is someone I haven’t spoken to in years.

Deconstructing Removing LinkedIn Connections

Removing connections on any social network is a reality. However it’s good to know you have options on how to do it, especially if you don’t want the other person to know you have made a disconnect.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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One of my long-time readers Matt (and I believe he goes back to the early daze of The Hot Iron) recently asked me how I write this weekly column of what I learned. It’s pretty straightforward; as I get an “aha” on something I paste it into my notes system which I can access by mobile or notebook computer. At the end of the week (or beginning of the next) I copy them into Word and provide some (hopefully) unique context around them. And here goes this past week’s batch.

Text This Ten Times Fast – I heard the term smishing for the first time this week. This is when you receive a spam SMS (or text) message on your phone with a link the sender hopes you’ll click on and enter personal information so eventually some account of yours can be hacked. Hat tip to Paul Ferron of LibertyID who was on Josh Dukelow’s Fresh Take for the term.

Bad Bad Browsers – Two stories past my eyes this week that reinforced trends in the wrong direction with regards to Web browsers. First was where the recently new Microsoft Edge, the replacement for Internet Explorer, is making changes which may break ad blockers. Also, a “bug” was found in Google Chrome where when you clear your browsing history it doesn’t clear it for Google search or YouTube, also owned by Google. I long for the days when a Web browser was just a Web browser, but sadly I would need to go into the wayback machine to the 1990’s.

Please Test – When testing mobile apps or mobile Web sites, make sure you take into consideration accessibility features being enabled like text size and zooming in on the screen.

Helping You Helping Others – My good colleague Thej offers these great tips of tools to use for effective documentation. Granted some of these are for the more technically inclined, but even if your Web site or app works well functionally, often people need help on how to use it.

Good Grief? – People were in a tizzy this week as it was announced the Peanuts holiday specials, starting with “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” will no longer be appearing on broadcast television but exclusive on Apple TV+. For me this was no big deal, as 1) I don’t watch over-the-air or cable TV and 2) I bought them on DVD at a Walgreens drug store for about $10 for all of them years ago. Guessing the discs are a little more expensive now.

But You Can Watch This For Free – This commercial for the Kyro Distillery in Finland was shared to me by colleagues in the Scandinavian country. But only watch it if you appreciate quirky Nordic humor.

But Will It Make A Difference? – The United Kingdom has a Minister of Loneliness.

HugTrain Reimagined – My friend Arie Moyal is changing his long-standing annual tradition of HugTrain, where he traversed the US and Canada offering hugs in the name of better mental health, into The Small Change Institute. More to come on this endeavour.

Closer To An Accessibility Law? – Web and mobile accessibility has always been a gray area when it comes to the law. The Americans with Disability Act in the US does not specify digital technology, namely as it wasn’t around when the law was passed. But that hasn’t stopped lawsuits claiming ADA violations. A new bill has been introduced in the US House on Accessibility. I am torn as on this as it really doesn’t address all scenarios, such old dormant Web sites that are still live, let alone relevant content on any Web site. I will be following it closely, and so will your lawyers.

Final Call For Paper Box Tops – The fundraiser Box Tops for Education started moving to a digital format a few years back, and the last of the paper “clip tops” are being collected now. As most schools are virtual, you are now able to send Box Tops in yourself on behalf of your school. Where this video shows you how, you still need an online account to get the submission forms. Personally, I think this is the end of the Box Tops program. Originally Box Tops were easy and fun to clip and collect. Now that it has gone digital, you scan shopping receipts with an app to “collect” now, and as a result you are sharing everything you buy and part of your credit card number. And not surprisingly, money collected by this is way down from past years.

Whoops – Depending on when you read last week’s What I Learned, the link to the presentation on Scrum and high performing teams may have been broken. Here’s the link again, which is not.

My absentee ballot has been received, according to the tracking Web site managed by the state of Wisconsin. Other than Seth Reid for Winnebago County Register of Deeds, I am not saying who I voted for.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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I have often said the technology needs of non-profit organizations are similar to those of for-profit businesses. To begin with, many for-profit businesses are actually non-profit, but I digress. Where the difference comes into play is in the significance of the technology to support the mission of the organization, especially when it has a greater cause. The following is a true story and the name of the organization have been withheld to protect the innocent.

What this particular organization offers to its community – services for inner-city youth – is vital. When it comes to their tech infrastructure, they needed help, and that’s how I came into the picture. I first got involved with a past program they had with refurbishing computers for kids, later consulting to them pro-bono on their Web site through my previous Web business.

One day, and I remember it was July the third, I got a phone call late in the day from the Executive Director of this organization. A few days earlier on July the first, they switched to a new Internet provider in their office, something I was aware of. However, what I was not aware of – and neither was their Executive Director – was the hosting of their Web site and email went away with the switch, as it was at their previous provider. As a result, their Web site went down, and so did their email.

Part of the reason why I supported the organization, in addition to the great things they did, was the Executive Director himself. His professionalism and enthusiasm could have him leading any corporation. So as he acknowledged what happened and what they didn’t prepare for, in his unique style he asked for my help. How could I not? Despite the timing before the holiday, I told him I could restore his Web site and email accounts by the time they were back in the office on July the fifth.

Even while I was on my call with him, I was putting together a plan to restore their services. Luckily I had recently taken a copy of their entire Web site so I was able restore it. I established new Web hosting and email and setup and configured it all. Once completed I crafted instructions for managing email, sending it to the Executive Director’s personal email. In the message I let him know I will offer the hosting to them at no cost.

When they got back in the office after the holiday, I got emails from their new email accounts thanking me for all I did.

Deconstructing Consulting For A Greater Cause

I gladly setup and offered the organization its hosting as I was helping a greater cause. Although what I did for them was not pushing the technical limits of what I can do, it was up there with the most gratifying work I have done. Today I look back on this with pride for the important services I was able to offer this vital organization.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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It was a week that started so beautifully that leaf raking was a fun activity, and ended with the leaves wet and nearly frozen… ah, fall in the upper Midwest of the United States.

Thanks for not noticing – I didn’t want to mention it last week as I hadn’t actually published anything to the blog yet, but last week I upgraded the software that makes The Hot Iron tick. Note this was just the back-end so nothing looks different to you the reader. Taking the sage wisdom from a thoughtful engineer from afar, I first did a test upgrade then after defining the steps, executed it on the live site. So 16 hours of measuring twice before 5 hours of cutting once. Now to learn the new features, or as I have discovered so far, less features that need to be compensated for.

I was not alone – Where I only focused on the back-end here, my good friend Emily Brackett dropped a new design for the Web site of her marketing and branding firm, Visible Logic. While you’re there subscribe to her blog and check out Branding Compass, a unique service to create branding for your business or organization.

Gimme what you need – I saw a unique user experience with a Web form this past week I had never seen before or even thought of. When I went to submit it and if I had a required field blank, it would remove all of the other filled-out fiends from view and just show me what I needed to fill in. Where I don’t think it would work with every form, it did in this case. And this case was a customer service survey for Kroger supermarkets.

Painfully lonely – Hubie Halloween was the best Halloween movie I watched last Saturday night. Did I mention it was the only Halloween movie I watched last Saturday night?

Not just another day – This past Monday was Columbus Day in the US. It is a federal holiday and is in honor of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. In recent years there has been a lot of scrutiny of Columbus and what he really did when he sailed the ocean blue in 1492. This scrutiny has been a challenge to Italian-Americans who consider Columbus a hero and the holiday one for celebrating all Italian American heritage as well. But as Italians are not known for being shy, the Italian American Podcast has been talking about this over several episodes. I haven’t listened to all of them, but I recommend it as issues like this need to be discussed.

It’s here, get used to it – Just about every day I hear some sensationalized story about the logistics of the 2020 elections. I use the word “sensationalized” as there is a lot of extreme opinions on voting, from in-person to by mail. But what about online? Yes, voting for the President of the United States online. And the kicker is, this is not even extreme. If you don’t believe me listen to this interview of Larry Moore by Josh Dukelow on his Fresh Take show. Larry has been a founder and leader at 2 digital voting firms, and is now an advocate for it, including with The National Coalition for Accessible Voting. Listen and learn, just as I did… from my old boss, as I worked with Larry at a previous job.

Be successful again and again – I finally got to watch this presentation offered by the Scrum Alliance back in July, and I am glad I did. Richard Kasperowski is a Boston-based teacher and coach and presented on High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety and Emotional Intelligence. This is a great presentation, and if you have any interest in team and inter-personal dynamics, it’s worth the hour watch.

This past weekend I finally got down to the new trestle trail bridge and walking trail along and over part of the Fox River here in the childhood home of Harry Houdini. Appropriately, there’s an artwork piece dedicated to late illusionist. But it was far from the only sight along this trail, as the leaves changing colors along the waterway was certainly something to see, especially with the previously-mentioned warmer weather earlier in the week.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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In today’s remote working environment, often we struggle to connect with people we work with who are also in the same boat. However we soon forget that when we were working in the same office and sitting around the same table with these same people, we still had this problem. I had a challenge like to this once with a teammate that I, as well as others, hadn't really connected with. I decided to make the extra effort to bridge the gap with this person, all to a successful outcome.

At the time I was with an international firm on an international project based in Boston. On the project was a mix of people from the Boston area, around the US and a few from around the world. One in particular was from Australia. When he came into the office, his presence was known. He dressed a little differently from the rest of us had a certain swagger. Not to forget he had a unique accent. None of this really mattered to me, and I introduced myself to him and told him I looked forward to working with him. Despite this initial outreach, I wasn’t really sure he felt the same towards me.

Often this colleague and I were in the same meetings, representing our teams on the project. I learned quickly he didn’t mix words and would speak honestly, though not always the most appropriately, at least by American standards. Often he would mix colloquial terms from Australia into work discussions, causing people to scratch their heads. As a result, many people focused on how he was saying something rather than what he was saying.

I looked at this situation differently. Here was someone who had come from another part of the world and was now stationed in Boston; though Boston is a very international and cosmopolitan, it still harken back to its conservative colonial roots. He came into this ever-expanding group and was trying to make a name for himself.

A Literally Off The Shelf Solution

One day I looked ahead and saw I was scheduled to be in a meeting with him the next. That night I was thinking of how I could finally break the ice with him. As I looked around my home office I found the answer sitting on my bookshelf. The next day I brought it in to work, a book of Australian slang. It was given to me years earlier by another colleague from Australia. It was a rather thick book, the size of large novel. Even though I had held onto it for years, I never thought it would come in handy in this capacity.

As we gathered the next day in a conference room, I sat directly across from my colleague from Down Under. Just as a meeting started, I looked across the table at him and taking the book out, I slammed it on the middle of the table. As did, I said something to the effect that he wasn’t going to get away with using any Australian slang expressions on me any longer.

To this he was a at first taken aback, then he looked straight at me and smiled. From that point forward, we had a much better working relationship, and I got to know him more personally as well. It all happened because I was simply willing to work to make a connection with him.

Deconstructing Connecting with Colleagues

Every situation is different and sometimes we don't always get it right. When it comes to personalities, I feel it's definitely worth trying to connect with people. Many times just from that effort we can gain appreciation and for each other and work well together.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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