Where would we be without Alfred Poor’s keen insights on the tech-forward part of the events industry? In the dark, that’s where. 

This week Alfred looks at why, when you look at a listing for a light panel or ring light, you will often see a specification about “color temperature.” This is usually expressed as a number such as 2700K or 6500K. What does this mean, and what should you choose?

The “K” stands for Kelvin, which is a temperature scale that is different from the Fahrenheit and Celsius measures that we’re used to seeing in weather reports. Kelvin starts with zero at Absolute Zero, the theoretical point at which all atomic movement stops.

The “color temperature” refers to the color given off when an object is heated. You’re probably familiar with the way metal glows red when heated. If you heat it more, it turns yellow. Heat it a lot, and it gets“white hot.” Color temperatures correspond to the color of a theoretical body when it’s heated to different temperatures.

Now here’s the part that’s counterintuitive. If you have a yellowish light, such as you’d get from candlelight, we call that a “warm” light. If the light is more bluish, we tend to call it a “cool” light. But in terms of heating a glowing material, the “warm” light comes from a lower temperature and the “cool” light comes from the highest temperature.

When you buy LED panels and ring lights, many let you choose between different color temperatures. (Most LED light bulbs have a fixed color temperature.) An LED panel with a 2700K light will give you a yellowish, “warm” light. A panel with 5700K light will be more like natural white daylight, and even higher temperatures can have a bluish cast to them. For most video applications, warm light is not particularly flattering. You look better in a cooler light, which is why most people choose a daylight temperature light source. Bottom line: You won’t look your best with yellowish light. Go “bluish” for a look that’s closer to natural daylight. 

You will likely look better on camera in a light with a cooler hue, which is why most people choose a daylight temperature (the higher color temperature) light source. Image credit: Wikimedia.org 

Most of us use a variety of social networks with different purposes in mind. When it comes to doing business though, it’s all about LinkedIn. Why? 

Scale has something to do with it. LinkedIn boasts 18,500 employees who support over 1 billion users. There are 220 million LinkedIn users in the United States alone, and 67 million of them are looking for jobs each week. “Six people are hired every minute“ on LinkedIn, the company claims. In other words, silliness and time-wasters are not too welcome on the site. 

While there is a free version of LinkedIn that has limitations, the theory is that paying a subscription helps you rise above the fray and is also part of LinkedIn's allure. A premium subscription costs anywhere from $30 to $60 monthly and is divided into categories that serve job seekers, recruiters, sales folks, and talent scouts. 

Forget the categories, one of the main reasons people pay the premium price is for the little sticker that says “I can afford to be in this club” and to feel like they’re part of an elite community of connections. Well, the allure is fading. Each day I open my LinkedIn messages to be sold on everything from hiring a life coach (is there really a life coach per person in the LinkedIn economy?) to come-ons about how to grow my revenue, increase lead retrieval, get sales help and even yes, ketamine treatments. Everyone who writes to me seems to be a founder of something or other. And the cold calls via LinkedIn are outnumbering my serious connections by about 3 to 1 these days. Subscribers will start fleeing if this pattern keeps escalating.

Here’s what I’m doing to put the kibosh on stranger-encounters. I would love to know what you’re doing. 

• Culling down my group memberships. I belong to many groups of theoretically kindred spirits but they’ve become fodder for e-mail marketers.
• Looking carefully where a query originates. How do they know me? Where are they from? I used to base it on our common connections but it seems that many of my connections will say “yes” to anything.
• Watching for signs of AI-generated pitches. They tend to be hollow and impersonal. You want to be contacted by someone who has actually researched you and your company. Beware of chatbots posing as people (there are more and more of them and they can be persistent on follow-up).
• And the street goes two ways. I’ve dutifully worked on making my profile page abundantly clear as to what I do and what I’m open to hearing about. I vow to take the time to add important tags so my time spent on LinkedIn bears more fruit. And I follow people like Tyler Chou who has made a study of upping her LinkedIn followers without diminishing quality.

I'm hoping that LinkedIn doesn’t turn into the cesspool that most other platforms have. I’m telling them, and you should too, that LinkedIn spammers (especially the "Sponsored" messages) are damaging the value of the service.

What are your best tips for keeping LinkedIn worth the price you pay? 

Congrats to Max Benator for conceiving SoCom, the Social Commerce Conference that is focusing on creators and social commerce. Social commerce is poised to drive $90.5b in revenue this year in the US alone. “More than that, it's increasingly clear that e-commerce and retail will be shaped by the integration of social and interactive features; live streams, video, AI-powered chatbots, AR, etc.", says Benator. 

A hearty welcome to new VEG members Brandy Alexander (yes, her parents had a sense of cocktail-naming humor) and her company Tandemtide to the VEG Group. Alexander’s Activate, Innovate Conference in Toledo, Ohio, is a great example of the power of local events. She’ll be joining our program in October to talk to us about how she did it. Take a look. 

Salute to NYS on the passage of the Freelance Isn't Free Law, which requires employers to provide contracts for all freelance work worth more than $800 over a four-month period and make payments by the due date listed in the contract, or within 30 days of work being completed when no date is listed. 

Why is this important? According to a report by Upwork, the freelance economy is projected to grow to $415 billion by 2025, up from $110 billion in 2020. The growth is driven by technological advancements, changing workforce dynamics, and increased demand for specialized skills. The report also found that 63% of companies are using freelancers, and 73% of professionals are considering freelance work. 

And hooray for Australia, where it’s now legal to ignore those all-night missives from your boss. The Right to Disconnect Act legitimizes the right to not respond to bosses, co-workers or clients outside working hours unless that refusal is unreasonable. To Australia, I promise that you don’t have to read the emails I send mid-day EST.