Here’s a little experience I found interesting.

I was in Macy’s today buying a new suit. I wanted to get a white French-cuff shirt, and I had two choices: a Donald Trump shirt and a Sean John shirt.

Normally I really don’t care about brand names all that much; I just want a comfortable good-looking shirt, so a case like this would usually be a six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other decision.

Except that Trump has been such a profoundly absurd gasbag on the political scene over the past year. “I guess I’ll take the Sean John,” I told the salesman, “I just can’t bring myself to buy a shirt with Trump’s name on it.”

He told me I was the third person today to say so.

I wonder how many other people aren’t putting money into Trump’s coffers for similar reasons.

“I don’t believe the most successful people are the ones who got the best grades, got into the best schools, or made the most money.”
—Ben Stein

Okay, that’s a stretch.

But:

There are those who say gun violence is primarily a mental illness issue — and according to a new study, Facebook activity reveals clues to mental illness.

Hmmmmmmm.

Ernie Kovacs was born this day in 1919. Here he is on What’s My Line?

LinkedIn goddess Donna Serdula alerts us to the fact that LinkedIn Answers is going away at the end of this month. I’m sorry to see the feature go, but I’m not all that surprised. I’ve often said it’s one of the best-kept secrets on LinkedIn: a good place for discussions, and a good way to help boost one’s SEO profile.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn Answers was crippled by two things: it was pretty much hidden on the LinkedIn landscape, and it was a magnet for countless irrelevant postings that were off-topic and spammy.

Something will come along to replace it, but ultimately I think what LinkedIn really needs are thematic professional communities that have moderated discussion boards — with experienced and engaged moderators who will delete the spam, keep people focused and on topic and facilitate worthwhile and constructive discussions.

I’ve been online since Prodigy was The Next Big Thing, and I can’t think of one worthwhile community in which I’ve been involved that didn’t involve some serious level of human moderation.