My impression is that there is (a) smart and (b) appearing smart. There are many tactics to win the popularity contest: conning people into believing you are sm

My impression is that there is (a) smart and (b) appearing smart. There are many tactics to win the popularity contest: conning people into believing you are smart, but if asked they couldn't put their finger on why they vote you as smartest in the room. So, many of the tactics listed by others in this thread are to con others, and maybe that has more value since the interest may be in climbing the social ladder in a corporate culture.