Let’s talk for a second about “gurus.”

Someone called me a guru a few weeks ago, and when I demurred, they accused me of false modesty.  It threw me off.

There are a lot of charlatans and a-holes in any industry, including the so-called Social Media industry.  But in my experience, the best-known “gurus” in Social Media tend to be self-effacing and mild-mannered.  

This occured to me via a comment I read in a recent post:

“All to often, one of the panelists has a personal agenda of pushing their services, and tends to shout down or talk over everyone else. This happened during a teleseminar for which I signed up mainly to hear Rohit Bhargava, and he only was able to answer a single question because one of the other speakers completely dominated the conversation.”

It doesn’t surprise me that Rohit was crowded out of the conversation.  I’ve met Rohit once or twice and seen him speak.  And I’m pretty friendly with folks like Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Kami Huyse, David Meerman Scott, Scott Monty, Jason Falls and C.C. Chapman, et al.  You read a list like that and you might think, “Wow, that’s a who’s-who of Social Media gurus!”  But, trust me, these are not people who expect to dominate a room. 

These “gurus” are not rich and powerful.  They didn’t graduate from Harvard Business School.  They have incredibly diverse backgrounds.  Many of them simply stumbled into Marketing.  They are regular folks, in the best sense of the term.  They are confident without being egotistical.  These are folks who like to listen.  They are, above all, thoughtful and modest.

That’s why, when they disdain being labeled as “gurus,” you can rest assured that it’s not false modesty.

And that’s why you should listen to them.

UPDATE:  After posting this, I asked the Twitterati whom else they would add to this list of “brilliant but modest” guru-types.  Among those named in the subsequent outpour?

Paul Gillin, Mack Collier, Christopher Penn, Amber Naslund, Shannon Paul, and Beth Harte.  I’d also like to add Dave Fleet, my colleague Doug Haslam, and my friend Kami Huyse.

There are even more mentioned in the Comments of this post, and I recommend you check out ALL of ‘em.

Comments