The Value of Sharing Our Knowledge...

The Value of Sharing Our Knowledge vs. Syndicating

Author: Virginia Benedict, Social Media Managing Curator

Okay, so we find an interesting article or white paper on a subject matter of interest and our instinct is to want to share it immediately with the world. We forget that we live in a super connected world and that the likelihood that the same news or blog publisher and marketers more than likely have targeted our friends, connections, and followers is relatively high.  Hence I ask, are we really facilitating anything new?

I ask where the value on sharing re-syndicated content is. Well! While we all appreciate that you thought enough of us to share your golden find, I think that I would be much more interested in finding out what your thoughts are on the subject matter. Yes, please cite the content, if you will... but remember, I believe, that consciously or unconsciously we wish to connect with each other because we hope to learn from each other, bounce off ideas, and/or validate our convictions and ideas through some form of mutual acknowledgement.

Our worlds are becoming more and more tightly woven and in a professional internetworked world sharing your knowledge and skills through discussions play an immense role in how you influence others into supporting your career path visions.

As a Technical Community leader, since 1992, I have been encouraging the members of my SIGs to become speakers, to be generous and candidly share their knowledge through user groups, and to create community and to support each other's career ambitions... by doing so we gain inspirational strength and the respect of those who respect themselves.

When we create original discussion posts, it affords us the opportunity to display our technical prowess and it establishes us as subject matter experts. It sheds light and creates visibility for potential employers, who are social media savvy, to readily assess our values as employees.

Similarly, Marketers also gain tremendous value from this neo-media genre of marketing. When marketers create conversation through discussions posts they begin the process of establishing the level of trust and transparency that will get them invited to their target market's negotiating tables.

Stay tuned for more...