Comments on: Thought Leadership

By: Easton Ellsworth

Easton Ellsworth — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:38:00 +0000

More visionaries, Aaron. :)

More folks brave enough to stand as light sources rather than mere mirrors.

By: Linda Ziskind

Linda Ziskind — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:33:32 +0000

I agree that there is a high noise to signal ratio in blogging, but I think the noise comes in different grades. Not everyone can be an original thinker. There’s a role for blogs that just echo the big ideas or function as pointers to other information. Another channel to push thought along.

By: Geoff Livingston

Geoff Livingston — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:42:11 +0000

I knew something was wrong with you.

By: Kalen Jordan

Kalen Jordan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:58:52 +0000

yes, you’re definitely on crack ;) the blogosphere signal to noise ratio will probly continue to decrease because of all the crap thats out there, and all the crap-writers and producers, and lets not forget about the gurus/teachers of crap-writing. oh and then there are the automated scripts which duplicate and re-publish content.

but no, i definitely see where you’re going with this, and i think that as blogging evolves, more and more quality blogs will surface. as for myself, i have a goal of blogging every day, so that doesn’t always leave room for highly inspired posts…but i try ;)

By: JJT

JJT — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:02:33 +0000

When I see the phrase “Thought Leader,” I cannot help but think of

By: Michael Pratt

Michael Pratt — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:50:29 +0000

Conceptually, I completely agree with you. In practice, I think it also can be broken down into two more categories. You can be a thought leader in your niche topically OR you can be a thought leader by providing content of similarly (to existing) high quality content but in a manner that is new/better/etc. Here, I’m talking about taking the norm of a niche, in our case style & fashion, and trying to differentiate by breaking a few conventions. Our niche is littered with celebrity crap, 80% ad ridden blogs, inconsistent post topics..the list goes on. it seems no one is really trying to serve a target that was researched and planned beforehand. Maybe that’s the thought leadership you speak of. Much that surrounds the quality issues of popular blogs today stems from the success of techniques that don’t incentivize high quality content generation.

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:23:45 +0000

Dave-

Buy in is entirely a different matter. One that is a decision readers make. Thought leadership doesn’t have to have buy in, though it helps.

By: Dave Litsky

Dave Litsky — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:21:27 +0000

The difficulty with being a thought leader, is that you need to provide your audience with sufficient evidence to support your point. Everyone has and is entitled to share their ideas with the world through their blogs, but the difficulty is explaining why your idea has merit in a manner that your audience understands.
If a thought leader does not provide sufficient explanation, then their ideas will largely be ignored by the blogging community. Or the thought leader may be ostracized by the blogging community for being creepy, weird, or fake.

By: Barbara Ling (aka Owlbert)

Barbara Ling (aka Owlbert) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:49:54 +0000

Everyone has the ability to be a ‘thougtht leader’. The challenge is having enough confidence in what you say to blaze your own path and sing your own song.

Some people choose this way….others just follow the thundering herd.

Data points,

Barbara

By: Tully

Tully — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:42:06 +0000

Nope, no crack detected. It would be nice if more blogs actually had even just some original thought, however, it takes time, and more importantly – effort.

Blogs which have a large percentage of original content (of quality) aren’t typically daily posters though. Even your top ‘thought leaders’are recycling quite a bit of content vs. original content, they do have at least a balanced ratio.

I look at the feeds in my feed reader and I typically have more blogs that have higher percentages of original content. Sure, I have some that recycle from other sites quite a bit, however, I recognize what they are.

I guess it’s a matter of what you’re in it for…

By: Jim Kukral

Jim Kukral — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:40:38 +0000

I agree, and I’ve been trying to be more of a thought leader by doing videos lately that are original thoughts. There’s enough “me too” content out there.

I want to make the news, not report on it. Good post.