The Advantage of “Sharing All You Know”

Skimming through Forbes list of the Top 25 Most Influential Personalities on the Web Today, we were struck by the common thread running through some of the best blogs today. Pundits like Guy Kawasaki, Jeff Jarvis and Steve Rubel have all led the pack of aspiring bloggers by sharing a similar approach: they share all they know. From a professional standpoint, sharing your newest Marketing or PR innovations freely on the web doesn’t make a lot of sense. Any competitive advantage you may have had is lost to the public once these ideas live online, right?

Maybe not. We need to rethink the notion that exclusivity equals expertise and consider the fact that leadership – being first – doesn’t necessarily carry any meaning without the authority to back it up. Revolutions generally can’t happen inside of a vacuum and even the best ideas need some real world tweaking before they’re ready to be applied to it – situations that while arguably fueled by our reliance on the internet, only present a problem when we choose to only exist in our own little corner of it.  At their best, blogs and social media have become true centers for discourse and the new proving grounds for testing out our thoughts and theories, but this can only happen through active participation and open exchange.

Of course, this process is far from perfect and only works when we agree to give up sole ownership of our ideas, but in the long run it has the potential to benefit us all by increasing our collective pool of knowledge, providing greater opportunities and driving advancement in our respective fields. And while this holistic approach might come off as too warm and fuzzy to pass as sound business advice, we simply need to consider the context of where the sharing is taking place. Successfully building an environment and community that prompts our “competitors” to take part in the discussion happening there, might be the truest sign of expertise there is.

[via renaissance chambara]

[image via laughlin]