I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. According to my phone's 'Screen Time' feature, between two and three hours a week.
And what am I doing on there?
Often working on my RTL Today Radio show, Office Hours. Either posting about the most recent episodes, or looking for guests.
I also scroll to get a feel for what people are talking about. Believe it or not you can still find articles that change your outlook or way of thinking.
But to get to the good stuff, you must wade through a lot of slop.
There are the adverts. Rarely useful.
I can't believe the algorithm predicts that someone who teaches in an MBA program wants to pay to get the same qualification from a competitor.
There are also the posts about AI. Too many.
Posts about how AI is going to eliminate all jobs, written by people who seem to be posting and not working. Posts about the low quality of AI, seemingly written using it.
But I was expecting relief from AI with two big stories.
Marie-Louise Eta is the first female head coach in the five big men's football leagues. Leading Union Berlin's team on an admittedly interim basis, but leading nonetheless.
In the corporate world, the glass ceilings seem to be cracking and breaking. BP is in the club of oil and gas super-majors, with Exxon, Shell, Chevron and Total.
Every CEO of the club members has been male. Until now.
In April, Meg O'Neill stepped into the BP hot-seat. If you search BP news, google tells you about the likely restructuring, not articles about the CEO's gender.
I was looking forward to my LinkedIn feed peppered with news and celebrations of Marie-Louise and Meg's appointments. I could react using the 'support' icon. If any posts complained, I could improve the quality of my feed with a quick 'un-follow'.
But I can't recall seeing a post about either.
As a wider society, we may finally have understood that winning records on the football pitch and in the boardroom are more important than membership of a particular gender.
A female CEO should not be newsworthy. A female football coach at a top team should not be a discussion point. It should normal, happening half of the time.
And if these events became 'no news', it would actually be 'good news' and evidence we are finally making progress on gender equality.
This is an opinion article. The views expressed belong to the author.
