[rant] Integrity and the Expert-ization of the Rank Amateur

Today’s Topic for “I Don’t Have Time for BS” Wednesdays: What Makes a Search Expert? What Makes ANYONE an Expert?

You may remember a few weeks ago when I said I was planning on writing a guide to how to spot a phony expert. I intended to do it right when I thought of it, but the whole issue struck a nerve with me.

I mean, here it is, the dawn of an age where communication is the most open, immediate and interactive as it has ever been in the world. Despite economic barriers that still exist for some, in relation to even having access to the web, via cell phone or not, this is still an age of unprecedented free flow of information.

With a cell phone, my grandmother in Africa could find out whether the guy who owns the shoe shop she wants to order from in the UK is worth the extra price.

(Yes, my grandma would still buy fashionable shoes in the UK. She is FLY.)

And yet, the question is – would she? Or would she trust “the expert”?

There’s the rub. Who IS the expert? Yeah, I know, they’re everywhere now. If you sneeze, eleven gurus say “bless you”. I get it.

In fact, that’s my point. Everyone I’ve never heard of is a guru now. The fact that I continue to reject that particular title is deemed insane – you’re supposed to be able to make truckloads more money if everyone calls you the Guru.

But I don’t want to be called that in an age where it means nothing – whether I deserve it or not is far beyond the point.

There was a time when if you were called an expert, it meant something.

There was a time when if someone said you were an expert, they meant that they read that one of your peers with a pristine reputation for moral integrity, honesty, a fellow expert with a proven track record, had called you an expert, and that they trusted that person so much that they automatically transferred that title to you.

There was a time.

I don’t mean in the last 90s. I’m talking mid ’08/ late ’07 – eons in Web time, I know, but humor me.

As recently as a year ago the word expert had a very defined parameter. one didn’t throw around the word lightly.

Let me be clear here.

I’m not picking on the person who is just starting their online career and has realized that compared to the business owners in their community whose leads are drying up, that their 250 targeted Twitter followers is a group that has value.

If you’re charging your lookie-loo neighbors a couple of hundred bucks to teach them how to use Twitter, more power to you. In fact, anyone who isn’t going around calling themselves an expert with no factual basis is okay with me.

The issue I have now is that the way the word “expert” is being used has changed dramatically in reference, but not in conversational usage.

Meaning, a person calling themselves an expert no longer distinguishes a person who, say, knows everything there is to know about golf, who has the track record to prove it, from the person who has just played more holes than you have.

The new “compared to the lay person, I’m an expert” culture is rampant particularly in social media.

Which would be perfectly okay if it were stated – understood even – that the person who is supposedly an expert is only one under those strict circumstances. But it’s not.

It’s a social lie of the highest order and it’s screwing up business for everyone including them.

I’m not going to sit here and lie, and say that the only reason I’m concerned about the spread of the un-expert is that I want to protect you from harm, dear reader. I admit I’m somewhat of a bleeding heart and that IS part of the peril. But a good part of this is self-interest.

I’m sick and tired of cleaning up after the so-called expert. It used to be enough that I could perform traffic miracles. Now I have to un-do utter catastrophes first.

I’m too old for that shit.

So it seems like a good idea to attack the issue at its source. And that is the ability of the false expert to self-stamp oneself as such and not be run out of their respective vocation at the end of a virtual sword.

I’m hoping we don’t need to bring dueling into the age of the Web, but a slap across the face with a still-warm glove seems befitting such an offense.

Because the word Expert has been pillaged.

It USED to refer to a rare person who was at the top of their game.

A person who didn’t just study a topic, but was a thought leader.

A person who didn’t just teach about a subject, but did what they were teaching you, who exploited their own techniques for personal gain – because they *gasp* WORKED.

An expert used to be who hadn’t just used the technology but had tested it on themselves, who was a pioneer, who helped shape the industry, who knew the insiders.

Someone who could prove their knowledge about what it is they know, who could answer questions about it off the top of their heads.

In the same way a good mechanic isn’t a good mechanic if they have to consult a text book about a typical oil change, nor should a good expert be dodging a direct, basic question about their area of expertise.

We’ll come back to how to actually spot the phonies in a bit though. First, I want you to understand that I was never fully in support of the Gurufication of information that existed back in the days of yore, either.

Admittedly, there was a bit of elitism to the “Expertization” of a person lo those many months ago.

You had to pay your dues and it was a pain in the ass.

If you hadn’t spoken at a conference, there were some that didn’t take you seriously.

Others felt the calling card was that you had written a book that could be ordered on Amazon and shipped to your house in a box, even if that meant that at press time your information was so old and outdated as to be ridiculous.

Still more felt that until you put together a $1000 package and sold a certain number of them … or drove a certain car … or had a certain type of house…

The point is, to some people you weren’t an expert unless you also pretended to have a certain type of expertise, a certain amount of money. THAT nonsense we can get into another day, I’m just saying, the days of the expert, proper, weren’t perfect.

But those days were changing. It got so, as in the rest of the IT world information publishing borders on, what you knew and your ability to duplicate results from what you knew, were collectively more important than who you knew or what car you drove.

And even without those changes, those days were better than this.

“Oh, what’s the harm, Tinu” say some of my friends.

“What’s the big deal if that loser says they’re an authority on that topic. THey aren’t even your competitors. You don’t even move in that circle. You wouldn’t get out of bed for twice the money they make from the little scams they’re running.”

It does do harm though.

It does matter.

And those of us who are knowledgeable just sort of sitting back and laughing about it isn’t helping. Some of my peers even think “Well, if those folks are dumb enough to fall for it, imagine how much you can charge them when they come crawling to you.”

Which is even scarier, to me.

Let me reassert before I continue, once again, that I’m not an angel.

There’s no future in frontin’, I’m not perfect by any stretch. But there are limits to what I’ll do to make a buck.

And if you’ve been following me for more than a week, you know good and well that I need all the help getting to sleep at night. So I’m sure as hell not going to be kept up by a moral dilemma.

To me?

It’s not even a dilemma – I can’t sit around here and say nothing when it’s becoming a part of the web culture for people not just to screw up, but to purposely set out to harm people, and get away with it..

I’ve screwed up before. There are screw-ups I’ve been a part of that weren’t entirely my fault that I still try to clean up after, two and three years after they take place. I’ve got a couple of debts I want to pay back even though I’m not legally obligated to lift a single finger to help.

But there’s a huge difference between wanting to help survivors of an accident you had a part in causing and purposely plowing full speed into a school bus with your head tilted back to finish your beer.

My point is, more often than not, these nut jobs are doing their dirty deeds On Purpose.

And the only reason I don’t name names in public is because I believe in the goodness in people and that sometimes good people do desperate things that they consider borderline, in order to get ahead.

I used to be one of those people who thought you were supposed to choose between honesty and making money. First I chose the money – I was in my early 20s and much dumber than I am now.

Then I met genuine, kind people who had mountains of cash and none of the stress I had in my life.

So I chose again. And when I chose honesty, and the willingness to be broke if I couldn’t make money other way helped me find out that I didn’t have to choose.

So what am I saying? What is the point of all this long-winded drivel?

That I believe we should come together and share guidelines on what to check before you buy something from someone online, especially services. I believe we should blog about the blatant fraud going on in our respective industries and, when necessary, challenge it.

Of course, not viciously, and not with assumptions – just because a person only has 100 Facebook friends does not mean that person isn’t a Facebook expert. For all you know those 100 people are all CEOs or Millionaires or only family and friends.

At the same time, we’ve got to get beyond this idea that having 5000 friends on Facebook automatically makes you the expert. That’s just insane.

Under the right circumstances, you can even get 1,o00,000 people to sign up for something that’s free and doesn’t require a credit card number, provided you can find that many people interested in it. Just get in their path, and offer them something of equal or greater value, for signing up.

(There’s your free traffic tip for the day.)

But getting back to it – why do I care?

The same reason I always have, money. The easier it is for me to make, the faster I can make more of it.

Okay seriously, now. I’m gonna put myself out here a little bit and speak from the heart.

I founded this site to keep people from getting ripped off. That’s what used to happen when information wasn’t out in the open.

There was less to pay attention to and higher stakes if you screwed up – if you were going to shop online, the majority of us checked thoroughly, if only to avoid the scrutiny of those who were sure just the act of using a credit card online would get us ripped off.

Now maybe there’s so much information, we’re listening to the first person who gets our attention. Perhaps, maybe, we’re getting a little lazy with our research — or maybe the new information is burying the access points to how to do the research, I don’t know.

Could be that the new people online just don’t know any better than to trust people who SAY they are experts, because in the offline world, you can’t just SAY you’re a doctor. Maybe the credentials are assumed.

Anyway, as the start to my pledge, my next post is going to be about how you can spot a phony in fields you may not be familiar with that I am.

I think that’s also part of the problems – I have no idea how to tell the difference between an okay Lincoln town car service and an excellent one, so I always go with whatever is linked from whichever travel site I’m making my reservations on.

So for search, social media, and website promotion experts, I’ll tell you what to look for and who, as far as I know, knows what they’re talking about. We’ll start with guidelines for search next, since that’s what the theme of the week is.

If you have some guidelines, leave me the link, or send me a tweet. Maybe we can put up a master list some place, or find a way to start some kind of association with an independent evaluation body made up of consumers through Get Satisfaction or something like it.

So if you have ideas about that, let me know too. It’s high time that integrity made a comeback around here – don’t you think?