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Upvote 1000x - I'm sick of hearing people who've done nothing and "thought leaders" ranting on. I'm pleased I put my head down, did work and did something that

Upvote 1000x - I'm sick of hearing people who've done nothing and "thought leaders" ranting on. I'm pleased I put my head down, did work and did something that worked for me that I can encourage others with and give evidence. I wish those who have done nothing would go away - and stop filling my inbox, and targeted advertising spots, and meetups with their crap. I wish I could help others see over the shouting and point to what does work instead of seeing them fall for the hype every time.

richmarr 10y ago
Many people work in marketing in some way or other, and that work fulfils an important function. I'm not particularly thrilled about it either, but we don't currently operate in a perfect information market and human bandwidth needs to be used to propogate ideas. Rage on it if you like, but you're yelling against the wind. My recommendation would be to save your blood pressure.
- lr4444lr 10y ago
  As long as everyone knows their place. I've found that the people - who add nothing more than their opining, expounding, and big promises but confuse having a core idea for the sweat that forges it into reality - to be lazy, parasitic, and dishonest manipulators of the worst sort who look at the people doing the real work as their instrument. To me, no one is more irksome in a business, and when they have equity it's an injustice I simply can't tolerate.
- koheripbal 10y ago
  Marketers also have the 99% / 1% rule. They aren't coming up with new marketing slogans all day long. They come up with 1 good idea per quarter and then go through the painstaking process of fleshing it out, testing it with groups, presenting it to management, getting design teams to execute, managing a project/budget/schedule, etc... This is a general human rule that most people spend WAY too much time criticizing the effort of those of us who are working.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zhte415 10y ago
'Thought leadership' is about being honest about what's happening and expressing this. Giving a voice to SMEs about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and where they think this will go; it is ideal Agile, constituting the combination of thoughts from technology, leadership and subject matter expertise. A credible message which parts on their own cannot communicate. Some organisations do this very well. When it goes wrong is when it becomes sales led. > I wish I could help others see over the shouting and point to what does work instead of seeing them fall for the hype every time. That's the point of thought leadership vs sales. What you complain of is people using the term under the guise of sales.
- ak2196 10y ago
  Oh ffs. I can't tell you how much I hate these self professed 'thought leaders'. s/thought leader/unoriginal wanker/g is what goes through my mind and I just stop listening. Stop talking like you are on a god damn yoga retreat.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  'Thought leadership' is about being honest about what's happening and expressing this. Giving a voice to SMEs about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and where they think this will go; it is ideal Agile, constituting the combination of thoughts from technology, leadership and subject matter expertise. A credible message which parts on their own cannot communicate. Some organisations do this very well. I don't want to be a dick but you've summed up what's wrong with 'thought leadership'. If thought leadership consists of a bunch of buzzwords that everyone else is using, you aren't a leader, you are a follower. It's a business in and of itself; there's no correlation between 'thought leadership' and success. Of course the traveling preacher would want you to think there is.
  - zhte415 10y ago
    You're not being a dick, I completely concur. HN itself is an example of what thought leadership can be, but would hate to be labeled with the tainted brush the term has come to stain.
- 10y ago
AlexB138 10y ago
I agree with this very strongly. It's similar to what happened with blogging. Early on, blogging was people who knew how to do something very well writing about their knowledge and experience. Then it became profitable and the filler appeared, which is mostly people who have no actual useful knowledge talking about what other people are doing, or about nothing at all. The transition from "engineers who write blogs" to "bloggers". The same thing has happened with "thought leadership". There was, and still is really, a group of people who do the work and have useful insight. They became high profile, and presumably made money on it, and now the filler has appeared. Self-professed thought leaders who are endless sources of bombastic buzz words and constant self-marketing. It's a natural pattern, I guess. Something becomes profitable and profit-seekers without much actual value show up. I think the thing for those who can do is to just ignore it and continue creating things of value. Maybe also guide junior engineers on the path of being actually effective and ignoring the crud.

richmarr 10y ago

Many people work in marketing in some way or other, and that work fulfils an important function. I'm not particularly thrilled about it either, but we don't currently operate in a perfect information market and human bandwidth needs to be used to propogate ideas. Rage on it if you like, but you're yelling against the wind. My recommendation would be to save your blood pressure.

lr4444lr 10y ago
As long as everyone knows their place. I've found that the people - who add nothing more than their opining, expounding, and big promises but confuse having a core idea for the sweat that forges it into reality - to be lazy, parasitic, and dishonest manipulators of the worst sort who look at the people doing the real work as their instrument. To me, no one is more irksome in a business, and when they have equity it's an injustice I simply can't tolerate.
koheripbal 10y ago
Marketers also have the 99% / 1% rule. They aren't coming up with new marketing slogans all day long. They come up with 1 good idea per quarter and then go through the painstaking process of fleshing it out, testing it with groups, presenting it to management, getting design teams to execute, managing a project/budget/schedule, etc... This is a general human rule that most people spend WAY too much time criticizing the effort of those of us who are working.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

zhte415 10y ago

'Thought leadership' is about being honest about what's happening and expressing this. Giving a voice to SMEs about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and where they think this will go; it is ideal Agile, constituting the combination of thoughts from technology, leadership and subject matter expertise. A credible message which parts on their own cannot communicate. Some organisations do this very well. When it goes wrong is when it becomes sales led. > I wish I could help others see over the shouting and point to what does work instead of seeing them fall for the hype every time. That's the point of thought leadership vs sales. What you complain of is people using the term under the guise of sales.

ak2196 10y ago
Oh ffs. I can't tell you how much I hate these self professed 'thought leaders'. s/thought leader/unoriginal wanker/g is what goes through my mind and I just stop listening. Stop talking like you are on a god damn yoga retreat.
aaron-lebo 10y ago
'Thought leadership' is about being honest about what's happening and expressing this. Giving a voice to SMEs about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and where they think this will go; it is ideal Agile, constituting the combination of thoughts from technology, leadership and subject matter expertise. A credible message which parts on their own cannot communicate. Some organisations do this very well. I don't want to be a dick but you've summed up what's wrong with 'thought leadership'. If thought leadership consists of a bunch of buzzwords that everyone else is using, you aren't a leader, you are a follower. It's a business in and of itself; there's no correlation between 'thought leadership' and success. Of course the traveling preacher would want you to think there is.
- zhte415 10y ago
  You're not being a dick, I completely concur. HN itself is an example of what thought leadership can be, but would hate to be labeled with the tainted brush the term has come to stain.
10y ago

AlexB138 10y ago

I agree with this very strongly. It's similar to what happened with blogging. Early on, blogging was people who knew how to do something very well writing about their knowledge and experience. Then it became profitable and the filler appeared, which is mostly people who have no actual useful knowledge talking about what other people are doing, or about nothing at all. The transition from "engineers who write blogs" to "bloggers". The same thing has happened with "thought leadership". There was, and still is really, a group of people who do the work and have useful insight. They became high profile, and presumably made money on it, and now the filler has appeared. Self-professed thought leaders who are endless sources of bombastic buzz words and constant self-marketing. It's a natural pattern, I guess. Something becomes profitable and profit-seekers without much actual value show up. I think the thing for those who can do is to just ignore it and continue creating things of value. Maybe also guide junior engineers on the path of being actually effective and ignoring the crud.