I am participating in the ComLuv/Famous Blogger blogging contest. While all the posts, including mine, are on how to encourage comments on blog posts, other topics flow from that. I got into a discussion with Mark from Clickbank about the interactive nature of blogs, as opposed to the didactic nature of magazine articles. This led to the predictable question: If everyone is just having a conversation, how do you tell the difference between the person pretending to know what they are talking about and the ones who do? This is especially problematic when you know nothing about the topic and are trying to learn. Mark maintains that you can tell after conversing for a while if someone knows what they are talking about. I have a couple of problems with that. The first is that I do not have time to converse for a while when I am researching something. I need the information now. Second, con artists can b.s. their way into a White House reception past the Secret Service. How am I supposed to judge over the internet if someone is just a smooth talker or is an expert? Of course, if I speak perfectly good Texan and they speak broken Queen’s English, I may dismiss them when they really are experts because of my inability to understand what they are telling me.
What we need is a system where the people who have time to converse can tell the people who do not who the good guys are and who the con artists are. That is what Scribnia does. It is a blogging community that allows users to rate websites. Then when you or I need information, we can use that rating to tell how reliable a given website is in delivering useful, accurate information. You can see that I have one of the Scribnia widgets on the right hand sidebar of this blog. Unfortunately, no one has taken me up on it and rated the blog, so I cannot tell you how accurate the ratings are. That may be the Achille’s heel of the system, that blogs that are good are unrated, as are many that are bad. Market research says usually only a few people out of all users bother with ratings systems, and those few are usually angry at the time. That tends to leave a negative bias in the ratings.
I am not sure what the answer to identifying true experts in a global, faceless society is. Mostly, I think we will figure it out as we go along, much the same as humans always have. By the way, if you would go by FamousBloggers.com and leave a nice juicy comment on my post, I would appreciate it. One liners don’t count, so you are actually going to have to read the article and ask a real question. Or you could rate my blog at Scribnia. Think of it as contributing to the blogging community we have become.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Stephanie,
As you so wisely pointed out, if you are not an expert you have no basis to evaluate someone’s skills and knowledge (and if you are you probably aren’t looking for an expert).
We all run into this issue all the time – most just don’t realize it. That you are aware tells me you are “smarter than the average bear”.
If, for example, you want to take piano lessons how do you know which piano teacher is good at teaching? You could ask them to play to verify they actually at least know how to play! But many who can DO are not very good at TEACHING. The very best performers are often weak teachers while lesser performers are often exceptional at training others.
While I AM a big fan of consumers reviewing businesses and products so that we can find out what they really think, that process does not work as well when it comes to finding out who is providing the best advice.
Most have the ability to express what they like or don’t like about a product or business, but many have recommended others they truly THOUGHT were doing a good job when in fact they were INCOMPETENT. (Alas, I learned THAT ONE the hard way.)
The people who are most qualified to recommend others are those who are very knowledgeable about that specific subject. That is why I make it my highest priority to identify who is the very best at what they do.
I can then ASK THEM DIRECTLY who else in their area of expertise really knows their stuff – and just as important to me – who else shares our ethical standards.
In every discipline, there are those who get results ethically and vastly more people who have visibly strong results and recommendations based on unethical things they are doing. Those like me wish to avoid them at all costs.
Highly ethical specialists tend to already know each other, so as soon as you have known and trusted one for long enough to feel confident that they ARE highly ethical and talented you can then trust their recommendations for anything else you may need.
Gail recently posted..What Caused the Great Depression is NOW
Well, there are two issues you address, Gail. Finding that first person in a given area can prove difficult to the uninitiated. Getting them to actually answer your query can also be an issue, especially when they have limited time and many people asking questions. It is worth trying, however.
I do agree that reviews may be generated by idiots, or their friends, and be misleading. Again, one must start somewhere in sifting through the over abundance of information.
Anybody else care to suggest something to try? Or weigh in on these suggestions?
Stephanie Suesan Smith recently posted..Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving- Beware this weekend
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