I’d like to rant for a moment. (More than usual this time.)

This goes along with what Robbin posted on Monday, but since I’ve been thinking about it for a while, I’m going to post it anyway.
Here’s what I don’t like about the “professional” blogging space. And by “professional,” I don’t mean people who get paid to blog – I mean people who claim to be professionals in a certain professional field (say, marketing, identity development, customer experiences or WOMM).

Some of them are completely full of BS. They go on and on and on about what makes great companies and how to inspire greatness in your employees and customer experiences… but they have no real-life, hands-on experience to back it up. Nothing. Or, at the most, a very small, kind-of, draw a very weak line to success that suddenly makes them an expert in an entire category. And until you dig down and find out what really does or does not make them an “expert,” then you just don’t know.

I’m thankful there are the John Moore’s, Jackie Huba’s and a handful of others in the world who have real experience backing them up when they speak in public or on their blog. I listen to them because I know that they know what they’re talking about. They’ve lived it.
As I learned back when I was a copywriter: everyone’s a writer. And a lot of them can sound like they know what they’re talking about - especially when they write these very long, very verbose, paragraph after paragraph pontifications that sound smart. And maybe the writer is smart. But untested theories are just that until they are proven in the real world. With real clients. And real customers. But there’s no way of telling if they’re legit without asking.

So don’t be afraid to ask. You deserve that right as a reader to know before you choose to listen.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 7:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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