You learn over time, that when being asked questions by a reporter that you never know which pieces of your answers they are going to take or how they will use them depending on where they are going with their article. Because of this I was a little weary of a request I got yesterday that simply asked me to explain what I thought made a social media expert. When I saw my friend David twitter about the article being up in The Gazette I had to read it right away.

I'm happy they took the pieces that they did.

As I thought about the question, I realized that if someone is going to call themselves an expert then they really have to live and work in the space. Just playing with the tools and having accounts on all the sites isn't enough. An expert will be able to talk about the business side as much as the individual side. That was where I drew the line between someone who understood the space and someone who could be called an expert.

Listeners of Managing the Gray will know I'm not a huge fan of the term, but I do understand the need for it. Some people need to hear it in order to listen to someone. The smart people don't require it.

Lots for the mind to noodle on this morning.