Cartoon: Thought Leaders
The first time I heard the term "thought leader", I thought, "Now there's a cool concept: someone who is able to assert influence and change outcomes through the sheer force and power of her ideas."
The last time I heard the term "thought leader", I thought, "There ought to be a little anniversary present to mark the three millionth time you hear a buzzword."
That may be my biggest complaint about buzzwords and jargon: not that they're often impenetrable to outsiders, and not that they often mask a lack of clarity on the speaker's part, but because they take perfectly good phrases - phrases with power, phrases with innovation and meaning - and suck the life out of them through overuse.
Got a social media buzzword or catch phrase you'd like to lay to rest... or maybe reclaim and restore to life? (Say, "social media", for instance?)
Happy Birthday!
By the way, this marks the first anniversary of Noise to Signal on Read Write Web. I've made a birthday cake but, uh, since you're not here, well, I'll just have to eat it myself. For the past year, I've been whipping up weekly cartoons, Richard has been gamely publishing them and you've been so kind as to read them.
Thanks for that. And thanks for every comment, Digg, tweet, stumble and Delicious-ifying. I hope that you'll keep reading them in the year to come... and that you'll enjoy them as much as I enjoy drawing them.
Ed: Thanks Rob, I've thoroughly enjoyed the weekly funnies! It's given RWW a sense of humor that sometimes we're accused of not having (being serious types) ;-) Here's to many more classic Rob Cottingham cartoons over the next year.
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Retire now:
'reach out' as in, 'We reached out to John Wilkes Booth for a comment'
Implies a level of intimacy inappropriate to the journalistic effort.
Posted by: gary.burge.myopenid.com
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July 19, 2009 3:52 AM
Thanks for that. And thanks for every comment, Digg, tweet, stumble and Delicious-ifying. I hope that you'll keep reading them in the year to come... and that you'll enjoy them as much as I enjoy drawing them.
Great cartoon!!!
I think 1/2 of those times one has heard the phrase have come from the mouth of a friend @sborsch :-)
So does that mean people who are Thought Leaders have Thought Minions?
What happen if the minions step out of line? Is that Thought Crime?
(Btw - Worse. Buzzword. EVAR. IMNSHO)
Asimov's character, "The Mule" was a literal Thought Leader.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_(Foundation) for more.
What a great cartoon...and how appropriate for the times...I recently ranted on the subject of "Thought Leaders" at: http://www.n2growth.com/blog/thought-leadership and thought you might enjoy it.
In kindergarten I was the Line Leader, does that count?
'as we move forward', 'company resources need to be realligned', '3 resources' (as in three people; HR jargon for warm bodies), ...
The list is too long to even comprehend.
Love it!
Thanks, all - and @Milt, nice one with the Mule!
@Dan, it all depends on whether the other kids followed you, and of course on what your Technorati ranking was at the time.
@Joe and @Gary, equally irritating buzz phrases - well done. #PXLated, loving the "minions"... maybe they're a better term than "followers" on Twitter? Can someone write a Greasemonkey script that would make that tweak on every Twitter page I see?
@Mike, thanks for the link to the article - and like you, I'm not ready to bail on "thought leaders" completely, because there's still a useful underlying ideas. But c'mon, people, it's not synonymous with "influencers" or "conversation participants."
@Sesli, what can I say? I decry your comment spam, but I can't fault your taste in copied-and-pasted source material.
And @Marshall, a little over a year ago you were kind enough to pass my name along to Richard - thanks a million!
Ouch! My brain instantly SHRIVELED to the size of a raisin just stumbling across this and seeing those horrid, HORRID words: 'Thought Leader'.
The next phrase that popped into my feeble mind was 'Thought Leader WARS' -- which I presume happen at MENSA meetings all the time...
Good cartoon.
Ouch! My brain instantly SHRIVELED to the size of a raisin just stumbling across this and seeing those horrid, HORRID words: 'Thought Leader'.
The next phrase that popped into my feeble mind was 'Thought Leader WARS' -- which I presume happen at MENSA meetings all the time...
Thanks, all - and @Milt, nice one with the Mule!
@Dan, it all depends on whether the other kids followed you, and of course on what your Technorati ranking was at the time.
@Joe and @Gary, equally irritating buzz phrases - well done. #PXLated, loving the "minions"... maybe they're a better term than "followers" on Twitter? Can someone write a Greasemonkey script that would make that tweak on every Twitter page I see?
@Mike, thanks for the link to the article - and like you, I'm not ready to bail on "thought leaders" completely, because there's still a useful underlying ideas. But c'mon, people, it's not synonymous with "influencers" or "conversation participants."
@Sesli, what can I say? I decry your comment spam, but I can't fault your taste in copied-and-pasted source material.
And @Marshall, a little over a year ago you were kind enough to pass my name along to Richard - thanks a million!