Snake Oil Salesman, Evangelist, Consultant, Leader?

There have been a few different posts in the past couple of months questioning social media expertise, gurus, consultants, etc. - all perfectly valid. See Jennifer Leggio's,  Dan Morrill's or Jim Storer's excellent posts on how to evaluate social media consultants.

In any hype cycle and new market with a lot of potential you get a lot of people joining in. Nothing wrong with that except that it does get a lot noisier - the people that were around first start getting nervous and there are people who get in to the fray that are just trying to take advantage of the confusion.

This 'social' space is also new enough that those who have a vision should occasionally feel like freaks - evangelizing a world that doesn't quite exist can be a little lonely. A great quote from a TED video of Benjamin Zander goes something like "If Martin Luther King Jr. said 'I have a dream but I don't really believe people will be able to make it a reality', he wouldn't have been a leader". So there is some selling of vision that doesn't necessarily jive with reality - even and especially with the best thought leaders.

I'm not entirely sure what the answer is. Having been a consultant, an analyst, and a business manager I can see more clearly the value that good consultants can bring.  Consultants bring with them experience from multiple companies and clients and the ability to 'see' more broadly then you can when you are managing part of a business. Consultants are less emotionally attached to one truth which is also hard to do when you've got your head down in an operational role. But sight unseen, consultants are also hard to trust and difficult to evaluate. In the shaky economic climate consultants also allow you to get great experience without adding headcount. And - just because a particular consultant is well known doesn't mean they are a good fit for every situation.

So - I am not going to add my advice.  Business managers are smart enough to figure out if a consultant would be valuable to them and smart enough to find one that is a good fit (or phase them out quickly if they are not). I did think it would be useful, however, to start a list of consultants in the space. You can find it and download it on one of my blog pages here.  Is it comprehensive - no - so I've added a form to allow others to add their names. Is it accurate? I've allowed the consultants to describe their services but I have added website addresses and Twitter accounts so you can find them yourself.

Read their stuff, have a chat with them, decide for yourself.

Comments

[Dan]

Rachel,

Awesome post, I think though what worries me is that because the idea is still so new, that companies will say I want, listen to buzzwords, get bamboozled, and waste money on something that is not going to work for them.

It is not that there are not good consultants out there, it is that you need to make sure you are getting a good consultant to help you.

My 2 Cents, but a completely awesome post.

r/Dan

[Rachel Happe]

Hi Dan -

Thanks for stopping by - and helping with some of the confusion. It's true that there is a lot of confusion and differences of approach out there so your post and others are quite helpful. I actually didn't have much valuable to add so I let existing advice speak for itself!

Rachel

[Jim Storer]

Thanks for the mention Rachel. My post was meant as a starting point, a series of questions to get you started in figuring out whether a person would be a good fit to assist your organization. Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not you can trust the person and feel like there's enough there there. ;-)

A couple of other posts on this topic hit my radar this morning (it must have been something in the water yesterday), including Dave Fleet's excellent post (and comments) here:
http://davefleet.com/2009/02/8-questions-to-ask-your-social-media-expert/

Jim | @jstorerj

[Rachel Happe]

Thanks for the additional link Jim - I think there is something going around ;)

[Mike P]

Rachel,

It is funny that when I read this post, I get to thinking about Moderation services.

Just like consultants, we do have experience across numerous companies and implementing best practices within those communities. But the fact of the matter is that you do need to feel a connection with the people that you are going to work with and get the right fit in order to be successful.

We are indeed charged in looking at each and every situation in a holistic manner and are able to remove any and all emotion in order to make the appropriate decisions, which is beneficial for all involved.

Mike P / @nhscooch