10/13/2026
𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
Over the last twenty years, when something you published got very little response, what did you do next?
I’m not asking whether you felt disappointed.
I’m asking what you 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁.
Because that’s where something interesting may have happened.
You knew which parts of your expertise were foundational.
And you knew which ideas took decades to develop and which distinctions mattered even when they weren't particularly exciting.
Then you saw your social media metrics.
Perfectly useful numbers if you wanted to know how an individual piece performed.
But somewhere along the way, some of us began using those numbers for a job they were never designed to do.
We let them influence what we published again and again.
Do that occasionally and it may not matter much.
Do it repeatedly for ten, fifteen, twenty years and look at what you've created:
𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰-𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴.
That’s the part we likely didn't see coming.
We thought we were giving people what we thought they wanted from us.
𝗪𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄.
Now, systems that never met us increasingly use that evidence when answering people's questions about what we know.
Joe’s problem in the image isn’t that he has too much luggage.
Look at the suitcase they told him to put it in.
I call what happens to our expertise when we do this 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee what it had done to the public-facing Authority Houses of senior experts.
→ [Read: How Senior Leaders Distort Their Expertise Without Realizing It]
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/have-you-smangled-your-expertise-how-chasing-social-media-beaulieu-xer0c
