5 ms·

The entire pursuit of "thought leadership" is a joke. If someone purposefully seeks thought leadership then they are probably incapable of truly demonstrating i

by tomc1985 9y ago

The entire pursuit of "thought leadership" is a joke. If someone purposefully seeks thought leadership then they are probably incapable of truly demonstrating it. Thought leaders don't try to become thought leaders, they become so by focusing on their areas of expertise

davidw 9y ago
My favorite 'thought leader': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shing
- booleandilemma 9y ago
  It seems that his only credentials are his hair.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  i'm sold solely because he calls himself a 'digital prophet.' also, he makes more money than me.
- uiri 9y ago
  The article says that he was born in 1970 but has nothing on his career before 1999. Maybe an Australian can chime in on the quality of the Billy Blue College of Design, but stints at unknown "digital media" companies and then at AOL (long after the dot-com boom) doing marketing doesn't seem like a particularly successful career. I'm kind of surprised that he meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines.
- FuckOffNeemo 9y ago
  I've never heard of him. Or Billy Blue design. Or anything to do with him and I'd expect I'd recognise his hair. Either this is a meme I'm not familiar with or we're being trolled. Perhaps both. Source: I'm Australian.
  - semperdark 9y ago
    It's essentially a meme now. Either he conned AOL into giving him a sort of chief innovator job, or AOL was in on trying to market him as their very own Steve Jobs. He got onto a bunch of news programs a few years ago where they fawned about how much of an honor it was to have him on. http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/the-digital-prophet-predicts-our-future-141561923586 http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/the-digital-prophet-pre...
- ilamont 9y ago
  Valleywag was all over this guy: Shingy's Book of Nonsense Prophecies Shingy Just Spent 20 Minutes Yelling Insane Gibberish on a Stage SXSW In One Photo: Shingy on a Wrecking Ball http://valleywag.gawker.com/tag/shingy http://valleywag.gawker.com/tag/shingy
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- scottdevries 9y ago
  I've enjoyed this Thought Leader episode from CBC Canada's "This is That" show: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/thought-leader-gives-talk-about-thought-leadership-that-will-inspire-your-thoughts-1.3615385 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/thought-leader-gives-talk...
- m-i-l 9y ago
  David Shing reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Barley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Barley . The main difference is that one is a character in a comedy.
kyleschiller 9y ago
An example from the article, Sheryl Sandberg, has hardly become a thought leader by trying to become one, there's nothing about the achievement that requires an intentional pursuit.
- imartin2k 9y ago
  I first wanted to agree with you, but then I thought: If a business executive writes a book which is built around some kind of encouraging mantra, then isn't this an explicit (or at least implicit) choice to become a thought leader? However, I am unsure whether she fits into the narrative of this piece, as her thought leadership would just be a side effect and result of her business career in a male-dominated industry.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
This is mistaken. For example, pg became a thought leader by attempting to become one. You can disagree with how influential his ideas were, but it's hard to disagree with the results. If not for his essays, there's a good chance YC wouldn't exist. You're right that the most effective thought leaders don't call themselves that, though.
- GuiA 9y ago
  I think you have it backwards. PG's writing got the influence it has mainly because of his startup's success, and later YC's. There are thousands of nerds with blogs musing about LISP and why nerds are the smartest kids in high school even though everyone thinks they're so lame; there's only one nerd that has such a blog along with a multi-million dollar startup buyout and multi-billion dollar startup accelerator. If PG had never sold viaweb or started YC, no one would care about his blog.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    HN's original users came directly from pg's site, and HN is largely responsible for YC's meteoric success. His audience was in the hundreds of thousands, so without an audience none of that would have happened. And the audience came for his ideas. You're right that money was a necessary ingredient, but it wasn't sufficient.
    - tomc1985 9y ago
      This is taking the discussion in circles, but the only reason people cared about his ideas was his prior success.
      - sillysaurus3 9y ago
        I remember how electrifying Taste for Makers was: http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html I was barely 18 at the time I stumbled across it, and it made me want to read everything else. That lead to How to Make Wealth http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html and What You Can't Say http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html I didn't really care who he was or what his past achievements are, so at least in my case that proposition is false. I just liked his writing. It's probably impossible to know whether the audience resembled myself or your archetype, but it seems unlikely that hundreds of thousands of people heard about the Viaweb acquisition or about some rich Harvard graduate.
CalChris 9y ago
This reminds me of the Zen koan, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. [1] [1] http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/670 http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/670
natmaster 9y ago
It is not sufficient to advance understanding and ideas beyond the rest of civilization. These ideas must be communicated as well.
- ebcode 9y ago
  Why must they be communicated? Surely it is the rest of civilization that decides which ideas it is ready for, and which it isn't. Go ahead and write a song like "Imagine", or give a speech like "I Have a Dream", and you'll see how well the rest of civilization responds. Civilization isn't pretty; communicating ideas the people aren't ready for gets you killed.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Knowledge that's not propogated and retained isn't cultural knowledge, it's personal knowlege. It dies with the individual. That's one of the distinguishing elements of humans: we learn, and retain, knowledge, and transmit it beyond the individual. We have an entire class of indivduals whose sole productive contribution is dedicated to the task of training and instructing others. No other species has anything remotely that. Biology is an information transfer system: molecules, DNA, learned behaviour, taught behaviour. Humans came up with writing, teaching, and now electronic information, genetic engineering, and perhaps AI, as extensions of that. Each allows for the acquisition, storage, transmission, and application of knowledge in new ways. (I'm not saying "without limit" or "forever accelerating". But I am noting that we've far exceeded any other life forms of which we're aware in this degree.)
pdkl95 9y ago
Vi Hart, taking a break from math/music, made a great video[1] on how artists (or "thought leaders", etc) create audiences. She quotes heavily from the forward to Edmund Snow Carpenter's book "They became what they beheld", which was probably written (or at least heavily influenced) by Marshall McLuhan. The main thesis is that old-media was about finding channels of distribution. If you didn't utilize existing media channels, nobody would see your ideas. When technology made the mechanics of publication cheap and easy, it became easy for the artist and audience to interact without the need for an imprimatur or interacting with any gatekeeper. True "thought leadership" was made a lot easier - and a lot more powerful - because original thoughts could be conveyed with new types of media to create new audiences. > If you address yourself to an audience, you accept at the outset the basic premises that unite the audience. You put on the audience, repeating cliches familiar to it. But artists don't address themselves; they create audiences. The artist talks to himself out loud. If what he has to say is significant, others hear & are affected. > The trouble with knowing what to say and saying it clearly & fully [old media's methods], is that clear speaking is generally obsoleted thinking. Clear statement is like an art object; it is the afterlife of the process which called it into being. The process itself is the significant step and, especially at the beginning, is often incomplete & uncertain. As Marshall McLuhan famously said, "the medium is the message". Utilizing existing mediums is by definition following what worked successfully in the past; the "thought leaders" and avant-garde artist are seen as "leaders" because they utilize new mediums, not just new messages. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4
- pjmorris 9y ago
  'The artist talks to himself out loud.' is a beautifully succinct way to phrase the creative process of the authentic artist, at least as I understand it. Thanks for that.

davidw 9y ago

My favorite 'thought leader': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shing

booleandilemma 9y ago
It seems that his only credentials are his hair.
HillaryBriss 9y ago
i'm sold solely because he calls himself a 'digital prophet.' also, he makes more money than me.
uiri 9y ago
The article says that he was born in 1970 but has nothing on his career before 1999. Maybe an Australian can chime in on the quality of the Billy Blue College of Design, but stints at unknown "digital media" companies and then at AOL (long after the dot-com boom) doing marketing doesn't seem like a particularly successful career. I'm kind of surprised that he meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines.
FuckOffNeemo 9y ago
I've never heard of him. Or Billy Blue design. Or anything to do with him and I'd expect I'd recognise his hair. Either this is a meme I'm not familiar with or we're being trolled. Perhaps both. Source: I'm Australian.
- semperdark 9y ago
  It's essentially a meme now. Either he conned AOL into giving him a sort of chief innovator job, or AOL was in on trying to market him as their very own Steve Jobs. He got onto a bunch of news programs a few years ago where they fawned about how much of an honor it was to have him on. http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/the-digital-prophet-predicts-our-future-141561923586 http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/the-digital-prophet-pre...
ilamont 9y ago
Valleywag was all over this guy: Shingy's Book of Nonsense Prophecies Shingy Just Spent 20 Minutes Yelling Insane Gibberish on a Stage SXSW In One Photo: Shingy on a Wrecking Ball http://valleywag.gawker.com/tag/shingy http://valleywag.gawker.com/tag/shingy
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
scottdevries 9y ago
I've enjoyed this Thought Leader episode from CBC Canada's "This is That" show: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/thought-leader-gives-talk-about-thought-leadership-that-will-inspire-your-thoughts-1.3615385 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/thought-leader-gives-talk...
m-i-l 9y ago
David Shing reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Barley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Barley . The main difference is that one is a character in a comedy.

kyleschiller 9y ago

An example from the article, Sheryl Sandberg, has hardly become a thought leader by trying to become one, there's nothing about the achievement that requires an intentional pursuit.

imartin2k 9y ago
I first wanted to agree with you, but then I thought: If a business executive writes a book which is built around some kind of encouraging mantra, then isn't this an explicit (or at least implicit) choice to become a thought leader? However, I am unsure whether she fits into the narrative of this piece, as her thought leadership would just be a side effect and result of her business career in a male-dominated industry.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

This is mistaken. For example, pg became a thought leader by attempting to become one. You can disagree with how influential his ideas were, but it's hard to disagree with the results. If not for his essays, there's a good chance YC wouldn't exist. You're right that the most effective thought leaders don't call themselves that, though.

GuiA 9y ago
I think you have it backwards. PG's writing got the influence it has mainly because of his startup's success, and later YC's. There are thousands of nerds with blogs musing about LISP and why nerds are the smartest kids in high school even though everyone thinks they're so lame; there's only one nerd that has such a blog along with a multi-million dollar startup buyout and multi-billion dollar startup accelerator. If PG had never sold viaweb or started YC, no one would care about his blog.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  HN's original users came directly from pg's site, and HN is largely responsible for YC's meteoric success. His audience was in the hundreds of thousands, so without an audience none of that would have happened. And the audience came for his ideas. You're right that money was a necessary ingredient, but it wasn't sufficient.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    This is taking the discussion in circles, but the only reason people cared about his ideas was his prior success.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      I remember how electrifying Taste for Makers was: http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html I was barely 18 at the time I stumbled across it, and it made me want to read everything else. That lead to How to Make Wealth http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html and What You Can't Say http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html I didn't really care who he was or what his past achievements are, so at least in my case that proposition is false. I just liked his writing. It's probably impossible to know whether the audience resembled myself or your archetype, but it seems unlikely that hundreds of thousands of people heard about the Viaweb acquisition or about some rich Harvard graduate.

CalChris 9y ago

This reminds me of the Zen koan, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. [1] [1] http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/670 http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/670

natmaster 9y ago

It is not sufficient to advance understanding and ideas beyond the rest of civilization. These ideas must be communicated as well.

ebcode 9y ago
Why must they be communicated? Surely it is the rest of civilization that decides which ideas it is ready for, and which it isn't. Go ahead and write a song like "Imagine", or give a speech like "I Have a Dream", and you'll see how well the rest of civilization responds. Civilization isn't pretty; communicating ideas the people aren't ready for gets you killed.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Knowledge that's not propogated and retained isn't cultural knowledge, it's personal knowlege. It dies with the individual. That's one of the distinguishing elements of humans: we learn, and retain, knowledge, and transmit it beyond the individual. We have an entire class of indivduals whose sole productive contribution is dedicated to the task of training and instructing others. No other species has anything remotely that. Biology is an information transfer system: molecules, DNA, learned behaviour, taught behaviour. Humans came up with writing, teaching, and now electronic information, genetic engineering, and perhaps AI, as extensions of that. Each allows for the acquisition, storage, transmission, and application of knowledge in new ways. (I'm not saying "without limit" or "forever accelerating". But I am noting that we've far exceeded any other life forms of which we're aware in this degree.)

pdkl95 9y ago

Vi Hart, taking a break from math/music, made a great video[1] on how artists (or "thought leaders", etc) create audiences. She quotes heavily from the forward to Edmund Snow Carpenter's book "They became what they beheld", which was probably written (or at least heavily influenced) by Marshall McLuhan. The main thesis is that old-media was about finding channels of distribution. If you didn't utilize existing media channels, nobody would see your ideas. When technology made the mechanics of publication cheap and easy, it became easy for the artist and audience to interact without the need for an imprimatur or interacting with any gatekeeper. True "thought leadership" was made a lot easier - and a lot more powerful - because original thoughts could be conveyed with new types of media to create new audiences. > If you address yourself to an audience, you accept at the outset the basic premises that unite the audience. You put on the audience, repeating cliches familiar to it. But artists don't address themselves; they create audiences. The artist talks to himself out loud. If what he has to say is significant, others hear & are affected. > The trouble with knowing what to say and saying it clearly & fully [old media's methods], is that clear speaking is generally obsoleted thinking. Clear statement is like an art object; it is the afterlife of the process which called it into being. The process itself is the significant step and, especially at the beginning, is often incomplete & uncertain. As Marshall McLuhan famously said, "the medium is the message". Utilizing existing mediums is by definition following what worked successfully in the past; the "thought leaders" and avant-garde artist are seen as "leaders" because they utilize new mediums, not just new messages. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4

pjmorris 9y ago
'The artist talks to himself out loud.' is a beautifully succinct way to phrase the creative process of the authentic artist, at least as I understand it. Thanks for that.