You cannot circle jerk your way to success

Aug 26th 2009
Tags: Just my thoughts

You cannot circle jerk your way to success

You are awesome enough to get all my posts for free. Click on my RSS feed. I'm @tdhurst.

Get out of your echo chamber.

You need to think critically. You need to question. You need to support.

You can’t be blind to criticism. Events like SMAZ are a perfect example of why so many people seem to have absolutely no idea how to get better. Who was the event for? Businesses looking to get INTO social media. Who was a large and loud portion of attendees? The same exact people that attend every other social media seminar in the Valley. Given this, you’d expect raucous discussion, plenty of disagreement and talks of improvement.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead we got blind RTing. A sheep-like acceptance of whatever the speakers decided to talk about. Did they offer plenty of good solutions? Sure, but not a damn person on Twitter that day dared question even a single thing they said. We don’t need cheerleaders, people. We need thinkers. You want to get better? You actually have to disagree once in a while. Sure, it’s scary, but it’s always scary to lead.

Every cheerleader is doing people like Evo Terra, Pam Slim , Jason Baer and Jeff Moriarty a disservice. Hell, they might as well be speaking to their moms at this point for all the positive feedback they get.

Not to say they’re wrong, but what are they saying that’s different? What are they saying that’s new? What are they saying that can be improved on? Is anyone stealing their stuff?

Get off of Twitter and ask questions. Stand up and say something. Be part of the Collaboration Revolution and actually give our community leaders feedback they can use to GET BETTER.

I bet they’ll be glad you did.

Christ, it’s happening everywhere!