Bullshit

One of the most talked about features of the web is the wisdom of crowds, with wikipedia the poster child of masses of people creating a better encyclopedia than Britanica.  While it’s true that wikipedia is great for all pop culture related references for any hard science research I’d go to Britanica or better yet the university library.

That probably makes me old fashioned which is fine, I am after all transmitting this post via smoke signals.  Negotiating the start up packets via smoke signals is hell if you don’t get your carrier pigeons just right.

As a side effect of how wikipedia works tons of people now think of themselves as experts even when they have no expertise whatsoever in the field they are talking about.

To me an expert is someone like Paul Krugman.  Even though he teaches in Princeton and that by default makes him 50% douchebag he  is an expert economist.  He has won a Nobel prize, published papers gotten a PhD from MIT and when he publishes something online he backs it up with credible data.  He doesn’t hand wave you can actually look into his math and it makes sense.

On the other side you have people like Penelope Trunk (not real name) who make up stuff as they go along. Reading her wiki profile is interesting to say the least.  She passes herself off as an expert in entrepreneurship and having  career, yet if you look at the results the only success she has had is writing about a career.  She is a good writer but most of her advice is simply bad.  As recently as 4 months ago she was writing about how Gen-Y was immune from the current economic disaster, now she is writing about how to deal with losing a job.  Her company which touts Deloitte and Touche very prominently is focused on Gen-Y getting jobs through their “special network”, the problem is D&T is one of the worst places you can start your career if you are a recent graduate.

Ramit Sethi follows in her tracks, you can check out his website iwillteachyoutoberich, you should note that Ramit is not rich.  Especially by Silicon Valley standards, yet he feels no shame in giving people crap advice.  Don’t buy a latte, invest in a 401k,… the useless drivel goes on and one.  For someone who is an expert in finance he sure has a lot of ads on his blog as well.  You’d think he could afford to pay for the blog without a ton of ads.  He won’t actually recommend which funds you should choose for a 401k or how to balance the 401k, you know the important stuff that takes skill to figure out.

On the other side a real career coach looks like Marshall Goldsmith.  Check out his bio then check out his website. Note that he has credentials, experience a track record… things that you don’t see with Ramit and Penelope.  Oh and Marshall has a bunch of free stuff that you can read which will help you along a career a lot more than all the advice Trunk has written.