The secret to Thought Leadership is not supply; it's Demand.

1. A Follower’s Guide
to
Thought Leadership
An archestra notebook.
© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

2. But first, these messages…
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Parkinson's law is the adage which states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for
its completion".
Information overload
“The resulting abundance of – and desire for more (and/or higher quality) – information has
come to be perceived in some circles, paradoxically, as the source of as much productivity loss
as gain.”[17] Information Overload can lead to “information anxiety,” which is the gap between
the information we understand and the information that we think that we must understand.
(NOT From Wikipedia, but free anyway)
One of the ironies of having the web is that a needle in the haystack is a lot easier to find – but
there are now thousands of needles, the size of the haystack is astronomically larger, and
increasingly the haystack is itself made up of needles. So, the problem now is… Which Needle?

3. Sometimes, an idea is just an idea
Sometimes a language has an expression that does not even exist in other languages. But within a given language, the
more common problem is that synonyms wipe out the clarity of distinctions. In American English, people will often say
that one word has different meanings in different contexts. But more often our problem is that we use different words
as if their differences don’t matter. Luckily, it is possible to rediscover their practical distinctions, by comparing many
circumstances of use to each other, and noting what is usually absent in one that is usually present in the other. In that
way, we were able to expose the differences shown below. Net: all thoughts are ideas, but not all ideas are thoughts.
As a result, sometimes the best idea may never be acknowledged, while other ideas still get to be celebrated.
IDEA An intellectual creation and observation.
Problem: lots and lots of these simply go
unnoticed
THOUGHT An idea as formed for communication and re-use.
Problem: mismatches between
opportunity and skill are common
CONCEPT A pairing of a thought and a situation.
Problem: this is easily restricted by habits
and preferences
Meanwhile, in the Not Leader camp, we see that these issues have not been solved…
© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

4. A Brief Anti-History of “Thought” Leadership
Since the 1990’s, we’ve spent a lot of time talking and asking about thought leadership. But all of it
depends on the same thing: handling IDEAS. Handling ideas is not rocket science. Mostly, we’re busy
telling ideas or using them, with ourselves, or with others. An awful lot of the time we are busy telling
ideas to ourselves, and using the ones we prefer. When we involve other people, things can get pretty
elaborate, but it’s hard to come up with anything that isn’t covered by either giving them ideas or
explaining ideas to them. That said, there are four basic major opportunities to “lead” the handling of
ideas; yet only certain ones get broadly acknowledged under “thought leadership”. Hmmm…
TELLING
HANDLING
IDEAS
USING
With SELF
THINKING
MAKING
With OTHERS
EXPLAINING
SUPPLYING
Four options. Equal
importance, but,
for some reason,
not equal airtime…
© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

5. Idea Leaders
It’s tough being an Idea leader. For many people who try, being a top handler
of ideas risks being on a fairly insecure, or at least testy, path.
TELLING
USING
With SELF
THINKING
MAKING
With OTHERS
EXPLAINING
SUPPLYING
SURVIVAL RATES:
Absolutely dismal: laid off, no tenure, burned at
the stake, robbed, disgraced… you’ve seen it.
Much better than the above: but how much fun
is it perpetrating information overload and
dealing with your critics?
And… it could get worse. Because…

6. So, who wants to Lead?
Although there are four basic opportunities to handle ideas, there are just three basic kinds of leaders to worry
about. You find them hanging out in certain places, in a variety of roles… But the roles don’t make them
leaders. Having a role is necessary but insufficient...
WHAT?
HOW?
INNOVATORS
Make new ideas
Inventors: propose
Analysts: validate
TEACHERS
Show how ideas make sense
Designers: arrange
Performers: demonstrate
PROMOTERS
Be a share point for ideas
Curators: collect
Presenters: distribute
Studios, Labs
Research
Libraries, Stores
© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

7. Sounds Like A Job For Marketing
Assuming the IDEA people are doing their thing, there are also just three basic tricks to helping them survive.
You find these being done by a variety of roles, too… They are busy working the market for “concepts”...
SURVIVAL. Fame, even.
HOW?
AGENTS
Represent the thinker or idea IDEA branding
(packaging)
BROKERS
Match ideas to occasions
THOUGHT branding
(scope, purpose)
SPONSORS
Commission production
& supply
CONCEPT branding
(identity, credit)
Intelligence, Insight
Markets
Value, Access
© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

8. Knowledge as a Product
Innovators who have Agents get a lot closer to
emerging from the research community as candidate
contributors in the market for concepts.
Teachers and Brokers (e.g., schools, publishers, the
Media) create the channels in which contributions
flow to recommended consideration and positions.
Promoters and Sponsors are a strong combination for
generating the availability of thoughts for groups that
already have a situation in common.
The most successful
contributors here get
known as Leaders.
Their most important
function here is not
to “originate” ideas,
but to communicate
and rate them, as
thoughts in a highvisibility location for
audiences. That is,
leaders rise to the
occasion…

9. Where Did This All Come From, Anyway?
In the 1990’s, an Editor at a magazine from a prestigious
Consulting firm interviewed a person who the editor decided
had business ideas that merited attention, and designated that
person a “thought leader”.
Today, such interviews would be published on the web, with
the same goal of cultivating attention to the meritorious ideas
held by a selected person.
Top questions for ersatz Thought Leaders:
• How do I get picked, by someone I want to pick me?
• What makes the idea(s) that I have rewarding?
• Who’s going to notice, and why?
If you can spot someone’s agent, broker and sponsor, you
might be looking at a thought leader in the making.

10. The Big Draw: Intelligence and Insights
Thoughts are readily recognizable by type. Some thoughts are the leading products in the marketplace of
concepts. Because of leadership and the mechanisms that support it, they stand out in an ocean of research,
especially with relevance to the situations that motivate us to increase or fortify our knowledge holdings.
TYPE OF VALUE
DISCOVERIES
USAGE
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
IDEA branding
(packaging)
MODELS
THOUGHT branding
(scope, purpose)
INSTRUCTION
ADVICE
CONCEPT branding
(identity, credit)

11. Why we want thought leaders
What if we didn’t have thought leaders like this? We would still have Experts, Critics,
Editors, Curators, and Consultants – and they are in abundant supply almost everywhere.
It’s not that the top people in these groups are not leaders; instead, some of them operate
additionally and publicly, with more or less success, beyond those roles. The question is,
what are they doing additionally, that gives us something we don’t already have?
Despite the name, thought “Leadership” is not only something “pulling” audiences along.
Instead it’s actually something being “pulled by” audiences – namely, it’s meeting audience
demand. Without thought leaders, there are plenty of great thinkers and plenty of
potentially great concepts, but they are harder to choose and more difficult to follow in the
timeframes and circumstances that we increasingly prefer.
In effect, through the impact of branding and publicity, certain persons become focal points
heightening the availability and recognition of significant concepts, when we need them.

12. How To Follow Thought Leaders
The top benefit of thought leaders is that they make the
impossibly large world of ideas manageable by us. A lot of
this comes about through successful branding. And that
empowers us to shop. But does this mean that brand
loyalty is a requirement for being a good follower? Isn’t it a
“given” that if knowledge is not changing then it is failing?
The answer is, the most important changes in knowledge
are the ones that change your own knowledge. This means
that the thought leaders that matter the most are the ones
that can give you something you don’t already have. That
“thing” should be ideas, but also, it could be an example of
how to act as a thought leader if you decide to switch
sides.
A thought leader’s best follower is a new follower.
“A brand is the set of expectations,
memories, stories and relationships that,
taken together, account for a consumer’s
decision to choose one product or service
over another. If the consumer (whether
it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a
donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a
selection or spread the word, then no
brand value exists for that consumer.”
– Seth Godin, Thought Leader