Activity versus Outcomes: The Story of Influence

I’m no analyst, so I haven’t had my head stuffed with vendor briefings. Frankly, I would go insane if I were to attempt to keep up with so many startups, failures, pivots and cocktail parties (if I had to mix it into my current schedule, anyway). Let’s face it; there are a million ideas out there — primarily due to the fact that technology is so inexpensive and accessible that everyone takes a stab at innovation and entrepreneurship. Now that we have added a social amplification layer on top of this new platform, we’ve exposed millions of narcissists who self-promote their personal brand all day and night. One might wonder if any real work is getting done.

This is kind of an old story, and a topic that was debated a number of years ago. For instance, I haven’t had a Klout account for years now (I deleted it). I found it fairly offensive that they could determine if I were influential based on tweets and Facebook posts. While I have some very influential friends, I don’t feel for one mi…