Heresy! You want experts to qualify themselves as such?!

When vendors speak, you should also ask if they can make it through the full presentation without pitching their own product. Plug the value of your product category, sure, but don't fluff your actual product at the podium. That's not teaching, it's selling.

Ha, yeah Chip, I forgot about vendors.

Oh come on Josh. I think you're being unreasonable here. Social media marketing is free of pretenders and those who BS their way through their caree....

Nope can't say the whole thing with a straight face.

Cheers

BRAVO. Well said.

LoL. I like asking these:

- Given you've been doing social media for fifteen years (love it when I see that on a resume), what did you learn from your biggest screw up?

- Given your status, how do you reach out to everyone on a daily basis?

- Why is your Twitter account only three weeks old?

- What did you do before being a social media guru?

I guess I'll play devil's advocate here.

While I certainly understand your point -- and could easily answer both questions -- I've never been much of a believer in the old line, "Those who can't do teach." Students and observers often have useful insights from their studies. After all, would you dismiss the observations of a Forrester researcher because he (or she) has never actually implemented or measured a social media effort?

I'll judge a speaker based on his or her content...and occasionally based on how entertaining he or she is. I was able to poke a lot of holes in a David Pogue talk I attended, but I still laughed so hard it hurt.

Shel, you make good points -- even if you are trying to steal my usual role as devil's advocate!

You are correct in noting that observers often can provide good advice, too. I'd suggest in those cases the key is to provide real examples of what others have done that they have taken notice of.

My biggest beef with many conference speakers is the sales pitch masked as teaching (as I noted in my earlier comment), followed closely by people telling the audience to follow Utopian strategies and tactics without any evidence that they work.

But you're right in saying that even "bad" speakers can be good if they are funny or entertaining!

Shel, I guess that *some* academics and analysts do get a pass, but as you said it really depends on their content.

I've seen an analyst or two preach the utopian view though without any clue as to how some of these programs work within organizations.

And then there's Robert French, who teaches full time and, as far as I know, has never run a social media campaign for a client, yet whose views I would view as credible and worthwhile any day of the week.

And this is why I love you, Josh.

Shel - we're all observers, aren't we? I'd rather learn from someone who has been in the trenches. Who actually knows what they are talking about because they have LIVED it. Even better, I'd much rather learn from someone who is able to create success more than once.

And then there's the flipside...

the speaker that's telling the audience how to build out a blog as a tool to grow that business. Whose speaker bio lists dozens of major corporations that they've done the same for.

Then you go visit their blog and you see that they have no comments, get 23 visitors a day, have 15 incoming links, and avg a new post every 3 weeks. IOW, they are following NONE of their own advice for building a blog.

If you can't create a vibrant blog for yourself, how are you going to do it for my company?

Spike: Here's why I love all of you guys. Here's the thing I just can't get over...I've been involved in the biggest B.S. business in the world--politics, the second biggest B.S. business in the world--the 1990-Current internet startup/strategy/whatever biz, and media in general...I just can't get over the following question.

Haven't these people ever learned the Razorfish lesson? I mean, if you're spewing B.S. shouldn't there be SOMEONE out there who calls you on it?

Thank God For The People Who Comment and DE-B.S. the B.S.

;-)

Signed, just a guy who writes stuff.

Scott Foval
ScottsBigMouth.com
scott@foval.com

Well Said, Bravo!

I am small business owner, and I do get measured, everyday by our customers. I get that everyone needs that first client when starting out. But to proclaim or imply a certain expertise in something, with little to no "real experience" is a travesty.

Becoming a social media speaker these days seems to be more measured by the number of twitter followers than track record

What could really help Social Media would be a consensus on how to measure results. Does anyone have a process? Have you discussed which KPI (Key Performance Indicators) are most valuable?

One reason many do not focus on results is they have yet to figure out what results to expect and how to determine whether they have achieved them.

I suspect many businesses have no idea what they think their Social Media implementation is intended to do - much less whether it is working.

I think we're pretty set on measurement :-)

@Josh Great. Could you point me at where you have shared your KPI and measurement recommendations so that I can share them with many others? While YOU may be they certainly are not common knowledge.

I did attempt to search your blog for that information; however, I am currently receiving errors from Movable Type. Thank you.