One of the most frustrating practices I noticed in grad school is that there’s really only one way to grow an academic authority: publish articles in peer-reviewed journals; the higher impact factor, the better.
Don’t like the process (And there’s a lot not to like!)? Tough! You can’t “do it your way.”
Fortunately, the real world isn’t like this: we can grow our authority through a dizzying range of media: be it public speaking, social media, or a good old-fashioned blog. This versatility is a blessing, but this open-endedness can make it hard to know how to get started.
To cut down the complexity, I’ve reduced the mission of building an online authority into two simple roles. I am writing in particular for technical experts: people with strong experiences in an academic discipline or practical body of knowledge.
Considerations like how often to publish a newsletter, or what keywords to target are undoubtedly important for building a blog. But they can wait until getting these two things right.
Conqueror of the knowledge trap
The knowledge trap is the idea that you get so caught up in your expertise that you can’t remember what it was like to be a beginner.
The knowledge trap can be very difficult to escape: how do you “un-learn” something? Well, you can’t; but you can be super methodical in the steps you take and the assumptions you make in your work.
Most experts gain such a command of their field that they can apply heuristics or rules of thumb sub-consciously. What’s more, they may be so accustomed to poor processes that those become second-nature too.
The more you can take a fresh eye to these workflows (for better or worse), the better you’ll be to conquer the knowledge trap.
This skill takes empathy toward students. You want to meet learners where they are now, and guide them to more knowledge; rather than merely signal where you are now, and beckon them to get there.
This requires showing your audience that they are in no way inherently inferior to you, or anyone in the field, which brings me to the next role…
Dispeller of impostor syndrome
I’ve done a fair amount of technical mentoring and coaching, and have learned from this what people really need when they are studying a technical field.
Certainly, people need help with the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of getting things to work. But just as often they need a motivational coach as much as a technical coach.
Impostor syndrome is rampant in technical fields where it is often assumed there’s a “geek gene” that dictates whether “you get it or you don’t… and I don’t.”
The geek gene has been scientifically disproven and does great harm to technical communities as a whole. Think of the lost talent from people who would have stuck with it if they had the right support network!
If you can make clear that you don’t have a “geek gene,” because there IS no geek gene, that’s one of the best things you can do as a technical authority. Paradoxically, open-sourcing your processes and laying bare what you know and don’t know is one of the best ways to cultivate a network and build clients.
The business caring of authority
If you’ve built expertise in a technical subject, you’ve got everything to gain to grow an authority. After all, why keep renting your expertise to someone else when you can capture and grow that equity yourself?
At the same time, the “business” of authority may not be like the business you are used to as a technical expert. It takes giving your intellectual labors away for free, to complete strangers… at first. It takes abandoning any pretense of being the “person who gets it.”
This playbook sounds nuts to any cube-dwelling middle-manager. Parts of it even sound nuts to the absent-minded professor (They’re good with giving knowledge away for free, but only to journals. You think bigger!) But it’s what grows an authority.
I can’t wait to see what you build, and the way you decide to do it. There’s so much margin to “do it your way,” but whatever route you follow, I hope these two simple roles can guide you.
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