… Is A Hard-Core “Thought Leader”

Posted by Pinky on Feb 18, 2010 in Blog | 1 comment

I enjoyed catching up on my Tivo backlog of the Colbert Report tonight, and in usual fashion, laughed openly (not out-loud, don’t make me hurt you) about his use of cliché and ironic self-aggrandizement to make a point.  So in honor of Mr. Colbert, I thought I might stick my tongue firmly into my left cheek and speak the following.

The term “thought leader,” as in “a futurist or person who is recognized for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable, distilled insights,” (as defined by Wipedia), is the most arrogant, irrelevant way to describe oneself as I can possibly imagine.  And I’m not kidding.

I bring this up because occasionally I stumble across a blog or personal website wherein someone I might otherwise have given credit to has described themselves as such.  A “thought leader.”  Someone who apparently has seen the future, has an opinion about it, and demonstrates confidence in promoting those opinions.

I have been thinking about this term for the last few days, as one of my colleagues in the field of brand strategy confided in me that they had considered the idea of starting a blog to attract clients and to illustrate that they were a “thought leader” in the space, but that they just weren’t sure they were willing to commit to the responsibility.

And I thought to myself… “Holy Cow!  I have a blog!  People have thought thoughts about my thoughts!  Therefore I am leading them to think about things I think about, so by definition, I am a thought leader!  HECK YEA!  I’m gonna lead me some thoughts!

So if you’re reading this, think about that.  Better yet, think about me thinking about that.  And the next time you think about something and somebody else thinks about what you’re thinking about, think about me.  And how I just led you to have those thoughts.  And why I, Pinky Gonzales, am therefore one of the great thought leaders of your time.  Or at least one of the ones that made you think about thinking, and so on.

That is all.

-Pinky

PS: The term “thought leader” needs to be banished from the mouths of any self-respecting human that actually wants to be judged by the body of their work rather than by the redundant, ridiculous titles they give themselves.  That is all.