<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Ever watch one of those juice infomercials that feature some self-created celebrity whirring blueberries in a blender? And did you believe, as they scraped all that fruit into a shoot, that this speaker was actually an authority on their subject? \nEveryone and everything is a brand, especially online. With that truism, however, comes this attendant and dubious proposition: Anyone with some knowledge and a point of view can present themselves as a thought leader to promote whatever brand they'd like to sell. \nAnd then there's the thought leaders on thought leadership. The headlines go like this: How to Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader in Six Easy Steps. Seen one like it? Google that phrase. There's a ton of 'em out there.\nHere's the result: Thought leadership is now so poorly defined, and so diluted by over-assignment, that some bloggers actually purport that effective thought leadership involves relying upon your audience set the agenda, answering their questions, and remaining reactive to their lead. \nThat's leadership? Not the last time I checked. \nPerhaps we need to step back a bit and reassess the situation, consider the history of the concept and re-establish what we mean by leader and how one gets there. What does it means to be nominated rather than to nominate ourselves?\nThe True History of Thought Leadership\nThe Wikipedia story about thought leadership, you'll find it everywhere, is that the term was coined by strategy+business editor-in-chief Joel Kurtzman, who in 1994 anointed interview subjects covered in his magazine as \"thought leaders.\" That's all fine and good, but how the title came along as a term doesn't answer our underlying question: What makes a thought leader in the first place?\nMaybe we should start in 1964. McKinsey Quarterly is first published. The publication earns a reputation among business managers as a go-to journal of strategy. It lays the pavement that publications like it later travel. Or we could visit 1981. In Search of Excellence is published (McKinsey, again). Virtually a consultant between two covers, it creates the template for the business-book bestseller.\nThere are other examples. But let's stick with McKinsey &amp; Company, for the moment. \nEven by '81, the firm could offer a half-century of institutional knowledge on business strategy. And it has these published works, among others, to show for that history. You want a thought leader? Well, they should have credentials and a long backstory. \n\"If I haven't heard of you and you're claiming to be a thought leader, I'm instantly skeptical,\" says Rob Walling, a serial web entrepreneur, an author, and a podcaster on the subject of startups. \"But as soon as someone I've heard of, such as a Seth Godin ... mentions someone, I'm instantly thinking that I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.\" \nThe point is, we do have ideas about what thought leadership is and what it isn't. And our ideas about it have been around longer than the coining of the term. What we know about thought leadership is that it's an earned title, and that while leaders will emerge from time to time for various reasons, not just anybody becomes a leader. Certain people do. \nWhat we're talking about is authority. The history of thought leadership \u2014 whether it's the McKinsey example (earned), or the Kurtzman story (conferred), or Walling's model (recommended) \u2014 suggests to us that authority is key. It's an element of leadership that seals the deal.\nWeak Juice: Reclaiming Thought Leadership\n\"When you ask, is this all just self-nomination in the Twitter-sphere and on the conference circuit?\" says Rebecca Lieb, a media and advertising analyst at Altimeter Group,, \"You're talking about newer, more accessible and more democratic media channels that make it possible for thought-leader incumbents and wannabes to hand-raise, make noise, and try to lead ... well, thoughts.\" \nDemocratic media channels sound like a good thing, right? But perhaps what also comes with this sense of access is a resultant frustration that, contrary to any DIY impulses, thought leadership is, in its best form, the result of a long-term commitment. Maybe it's not something that you can learn to do by reading about it. And, probably, you can't nominate yourself. \nSo, how does one get chosen? What is the criteria for leadership? Who curates the selection? \n\"Rather like achieving academic tenure,\" says Lieb, regarding one way to think about the process. \"Thought leadership requires a continuum of wisdom, accomplishment, and a body of published work that stands the test of a degree of time.\"\nThis isn't hard to understand. We do it all the time. Richard Branson: We can accept that he's a thought leader because he can point to his continuum of accomplishment and a enormous body of valuable and established work. \nSame with Seth Godin \u2014 decades of proven concepts behind the notion that he's an authority on the subjects that he tackles. So, the test of time and accomplishment is a big part of thing. The proof in the pudding matters. We are the curators. But it's an ongoing responsibility. And every time a so-called thought leader self-nominates, we would do well to respond not by retweeting, but by saying something like: Hey, not so fast buddy.\nIf we don't reject the self-nominators\u201A then we're allowing any number of \"wannabe\" thought leaders to dilute the very meaning of the term. If we tacitly accept some five-easy-steps model for thought leadership, then the best thought leaders \u2014 especially the newest of our next crop \u2014 are in danger of getting lost among the juice-machine celebrities of the Internet. Our cups won't runneth over; what's in them will just be watered down. \nImage via iStockphoto, cyrop"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/05/20/thought-leadership/>