LinkedIn asked me to fill out a survey. And you know that i love filling out surveys!
They asked me whether i work as a translator. “Yes”, and i immediately knew where it was going.
“What kind of incentive would you want for translating LinkedIn – premium account / group leadership / i’ll just do it for fun.” And of course, they didn’t offer me money. I ticked all options except “fun”, ‘cuz LinkedIn is not that kind of a website which i’d translate just for fun.
The next question was even better – “How many hours a week would you spend as a volunteer translating LinkedIn?”
The success of Wikipedia made some people think that random folks really love doing things for free. Some people like some things, not all people like all things.
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It’s a basic compliance-strategy.
The idea is to create commitment. Once you’ve answered such a “survey”, you need to actually translate their interface that many hours a week in order to be consistent with the answers you chose.
Plus, there’s the declarative value: if you answered “leadership”, they managed to create a link between working for them and “being a leader”, and since you’ve declared yourself a “leader” type – you will want to prove it (to yourself) by working for them.
The “survey” is there so that the commitment would be in writing.
It’s persuasion 101… see “commitment and consistency” here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion#Methods
Persuasion sucks.
But thanks for the details.
Damn it.
And i wonder why did they ask me, of all people. Did they notice that i’m a linguist or did they send this survey to millions of their users?