The teacher in me believes I can take nearly any subject and make it exciting and practical without a lot of practitioner experience.

And, the opportunist in me recognizes there aren't always very high thresholds for claiming expertise; anyone can, for example, claim to be a “social media expert”, or so it seems these days.

But the “do I write this guy a check for a speech and/or consulting” judge inside me says, “I'll write the check for the communicator who is also a practitioner”.

I've spent more than a few years practicing what I speak/write about, Performance Branding. Clients seem to respect and value that fact as much as my ability to teach and entertain when called upon to do so.

Again, thanks for stirring the pot!

Keep creating…a brand worth raving about,
Mike

My point is that some people aren't as discerning as you…in fact most aren't. My argument (since you work for an agency, I am going to start there) is that a lot of agencies say “the do social media” and yet *they* don't walk the walk either.

My only point is that it goes both way and I am trying to provide some balance to the conversation here.

Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent) had a post on agencies that were also social…it was VERY short.

I don't know what you've done as a social media practictioner, I'd love to see what social media programs you have put together for clients. Do you have anything other than the links above? (Like I said, I am always looking for references.)

here's the difference…my thinking can be seen on this site, on other sites, on twitter, in Connect Marketing In the Social Media Age, and in the speaking I've done…and I've got the real world examples as credentials. I've got both halves of the equation.

I don't think “beating up” is the wrong phrase here…you are surely 'beating the rug,' so to speak, to get out of it what you feel you need/derserve from the social media space you even said that yourself (“entitled to my opinions”) and that's completely understandable.

My point to my posts above (call me a devil's advocate if you will) is that asking for “proof” (what you've been discussing with Chris) is the antithesis of what you've provided us as an agency (and I say that because you pointed us in that direction w/your link), proof but NO thought leadership.

I totally get your point and I think this has been a great discussion…that said, I, personally, want to see BOTH thought leadership AND proof (and in the social space the proof can also be the person's actions or online reputation…like their community, their blog, their conversations — again subjective, mileage will vary). I don't want a dog & pony show only, I want to know how the agency or consultant trained the dogs and ponies and the process they took to do so.

Also, I think there's a sense in the social media space that self-promotion is a no-no (which could be part of what you are experiencing). Why? It makes no sense to me because after a while I think people earn the right to promote the great things they've done. Like you, I want to see what people are working on because I'd like to be able to refer them. Knowing how they think and what they do tactically is helpful.

Thanks Adam! This has been fun (I like to debate, don't take it personally) and insightful. I know you've been thinking about this topic for a while, so I am glad to see you finally blogged about it.

Thought leaders are hard to define in any space, especially one that touches across large entities. I have several international clients, as well as several “competitors” that have utilized my skills.

Since I do audit and competitive intelligence work with a social media focus, it is very easy to realize that I sign non-disclosure agreements on a daily basis. In some cases I don't find out anything. In other cases I find twenty million dollar client lists online (ouch.)

On the flipside- I contribute a lot of insight on my blog, which a lot of PR and University folk stop by and even use for coursework (the first request I received for coursework quotation made me feel like an uber-geek)

On the other hand, there are A LOT of those imposters out there who know how to game a system for simple numbers… who cares if you have 50k followers? (Laughingly, I tried keeping my follower count under 1000 for the longest time because of the methodology I had for using it)

On a client basis, it is also hard to define what makes or breaks the model of being proficient/expert with social media. I routinely audit companies that have been “suckered” by top firms or who have done something technically simple, but incredibly costly. In some cases the “expert” did such a good job building a relationship and greasing the gears that the client was “happy” even though the results were non-existent.

Some examples:

A top ten clothing retailer who paid $100k for a Facebook app that had 72 retail users.
A top ten home builder who had paid over $500k in Google PPC, but was never provided an ROI / conversion column six month into the campaign
A top one-hundred traffic site that had accidentally added “no index” to it robots.txt file (ouch)

I come back and then readdress the question: “Does a thought leader need to be a practitioner?”

Yes. Absolutely.

Otherwise the “thought leader” is a salesperson, not a thought leader. There are SO MANY people spitting out random thoughts here and there, that 1 person out of 1000 will be correct about the future. Does this make them right? a thought leader? a guru? No… it just makes them lucky.

We could compare the same idea to all the stock market wackos who claim they predicted X years in advance. If 95% of your predictions and thoughts are incorrect, the other 5% is just normal luck (not insight or thought leading)

In your comparison to baseball, there may be a difference in theory of hitting the ball and actually swinging at it- but a thought-leader is more comparable to the superstar on the team, instead of the superstar coach.

If we apply ideas of general management to social media, every corporate director could claim they have “social media expertise” – you can read more about my thoughts on defining social media expertise on this article I wrote back in March http://ow.ly/iw7Y

If we're operating in the world of transparency, why is it so hard?