You are the product.
I love “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver. And I was watching his monologue on Mount Everest the other day
Near the end, there was a small clip from Sir Edmund Hillary (who, with Tenzing Norgay, were the first people to climb Mount Everest) talking about the kinds of people that climb Mount Everest today. In this climb, he said, “…But all the customers really want to do, is to try to get to the top of the mountain and then come down and boast about to their friends at home. Very few of them (and I’ve talked to many of them) very few of them have a deep feeling of love for the mountains…”
After the clip, John Oliver added, “That’s right, some of the people climbing Everest aren’t doing it out of a passion for mountaineering; but because they want to say they climbed Everest.”
And that’s when it struck me that this very neatly sums up a certain camp of people who claim to be experts in evidence-based practice.
Most evidence-summaries or evidence-infographics on social media are there to catch your attention. They’re not really there to help you make decisions. They generally lack context, or reference to the situation in which those conclusions might be useful. They’re usually vague and pert, not only because it’s difficult to summarize complex information in simple snippets, but also because they know they have very little time to keep your attention — not on the information, but their brand.
These are the people who don’t really have your best interest in mind. They’re the people who want to say they are “evidence-based”, because it’s the right buzzword to use. It creates status for them. But they are also without any deep commitment or understanding of what the term really means.
This creates confusion and insecurity to readers who are already unsure of themselves. Presenting information confidently is practically as important as the information itself. The seeming confidence (and these people might actually believe their own words), makes others feel insufficient (“Why don’t I have this kind of sureness?”) which can lead to blind following, because in the absence of a clear leader, the most confident person wins, regardless of whether they’re the right person for the job or not (and confidence can come directly from the person, or by aura.)
The purpose of this marketing is to create a “resource” that resonates with your existing beliefs in the hopes that you will not only feel reassured by what you already believe, but that you will then feed it forward. You are not the person they seek to serve. You are the product — the forwarding, sharing, retweeting product.
The way around all of this is to make up your own mind — individually, and within the context that only you really understand.
Ask better questions. It’s not the easiest path, but it’s the one that will get you the farthest.
Find out more at http://criticalmass.ninja
