We love to read blogs of our favorite thought-leader/social media guru/marketing expert, agreeing with what they present. So much so that, at times, it’s as if our capacity to analyze information is corrupted by the blinding radiance of the writers Klout score.
It’s a good thing to remind ourselves that, NOBODY has all the answers. Great writers may know little about technology. A technologist may know very little about design and importance of visual communication and lesser still, about community building. It often takes many different skill-sets and personal qualities to work together, to enhance the creative melting-pot.
We now have the opportunity, more than any other time in our history, to leverage collaborative thought. A spark here and another there, adds to the exponentially growing creative stream. Nodding our heads and agreeing with everything written by our social media maven or hero is a safe thing to do. However, it’s counter-productive to our collective growth if there are no disagreements.
Many blogs (Mark Schaefer’s increasingly popular blog comes to mind), seem to actively encourage dissent on their comments section. They rightly recognize disagreements as being important to discourse and the collective thought process. Many others seem more reticent about dissension, than they probably are. Maybe this discourages the ‘blogspell-bound’ masses from analyzing content. Trance induced applause thus seem to be a scheduled reaction on some blogs.
It is important that adulation does not lull our ‘thought leaders’ into dishing out information, that we cannot relate to. Advice that is borderline narcissistic and elitist. We have ourselves to blame if we accept without questioning. So let’s challenge ‘thought leaders’ to be better than they are. Remind them to connect, to walk in our shoes, even if in empathy.
Don’t let them confuse respect with unconditional support.
DON’T let them SUCK.
We all benefit.