[A note from Pat: Today’s post is a combo guest post from by Rebecca H. Goldberg and Carl Friesen. I met Carl over at Engineering.com where he and I both blog frequently. Carl and Rebecca work at Global Reach Communications, where they help professionals make a name for themselves using the internet and social media.]

Showing Credibility in a Digital Age

Photo Credit: C. Friesen

Many engineers like to stay out of the limelight — to just go on doing the best work they can. But if your aim is to rise in your profession into a leadership role, you’ll need to build your profile.

So how do you get recognized as a subject-matter expert in your field? It’s important to understand the rapid changes that are happening in how to demonstrate expertise, and grab hold of the trends so they become your friend.

To understand which of the new tools are effective for demonstrating thought leadership, it’s important to understand what tools have been traditionally effective.

Traditional Thought Leadership

Academic and professional designations: Having an advanced degree from a university with credibility in that field helps, as does having the relevant professional designation. Being a Fellow in your professional field helps too.

Published papers in professional or academic journals: Having a paper accepted by a respected journal has long been one of the best ways to demonstrate credibility, given the rigorous peer review process involved. Such papers gain extra credibility if they are cited in others’ work and gradually become recognized as the accepted wisdom on their subject matter.

Presenting papers at recognized professional conferences: Most professions, occupations and industries have their ‘definitive’ conferences, and being invited to present your paper there is a big credibility boost.

A strong CV: All these credentials, plus the names of significant completed projects, should be listed on one’s Curriculum Vitae or resume, which pulls all these accomplishments together.

The changing role of expertise in today’s business environment

To see how this is changing, consider how business leaders look for expertise. Generally, it’s because they have a problem they need to solve, or an opportunity they want to access. Increasingly, they want a ‘name’ on their project, someone who has credibility.

They look for indications of credibility to help them differentiate among potential problem-solvers, and also because they may need to defend their choice: “She presented a paper at her professional conference last year!” Getting buy-in matters because of the increasing number of business decisions today that are taken in consultation with other stakeholders — including other departments, joint-venture partners, financial sources and leading shareholders.

This being the age of Google, such searches are conducted online, and in two main ways: topic search and name search. Anyone wanting to learn about a new subject area will enter some keywords about the topic into a search engine, and if the engineer has generated enough content about her or his subject area, that content should come up, if possible near the top of the search results.

However, it is more likely that someone will already have heard about the engineer, or met him or her at a networking event, and so will type the person’s name into the search engine to see what evidence there is of that person’s expertise.

The digital age has spawned a wide range of emerging vehicles for demonstrating thought leadership which can complement and bring more attention to the long-established means of described above.

One of the best-known online ‘scorecards’ is one’s Klout Score (klout.com) which is a 1-100 number showing how influential you are.

Emerging thought leadership vehicles

YouTube: Right after the question, “Is this engineer a recognized authority in their field?” a potential client will ask, “Would I enjoy working with them?” That’s a question a engineer can answer through effective use of YouTube. Videos of a presentation you’ve given, or just you talking to the camera about a development in your client’s industry, go a long way to showing you as an approachable kind of person.

While the results from a professional videographer and production house will likely be better than you can do yourself, today’s consumer cameras and video-editing software are easy to use and can produce credible results.

You can also add your comments to the text accompanying others’ videos, as an easy way to lend wings to your ideas.

Twitter: Although Twitter seems to be everywhere, it really isn’t: according to recent figures by social media guru Jay Baer, only seven percent of Americans use Twitter. But still, this micro-blogging platform is emerging as an effective way to demonstrate thought leadership. Many subject-matter experts have strong Twitter followings, by people eager to hear what the expert has to say, see curated information passed on via Twitter, and engage in dialogue. Many journalists use Twitter as a way to find out who they can interview about an article or report they’re working on.

If you want to establish thought leadership in your field, be sure to add your own ideas to the tweets you pass along — and leave room in what you say for others to add their thoughts and retweet.

SlideShare: This little-known platform allows you to share presentations developed on PowerPoint and similar programs, presenting ideas in infographics including charts and graphs, text, photographs and other elements. It’s a good way to provide a tight dose of information on a specific topic.

Some engineers make the mistake of taking a PowerPoint from a presentation they’ve given and uploading it to SlideShare, without realizing that without their narrated explanation, the slides won’t make much sense. You need to rework the slides so that they are effective as stand-alone content.

LinkedIn: Standing midway between the “established” and “emerging” technologies is LinkedIn, which at its most fundamental is an online CV. It’s also likely the first result someone will come to if they Google your name, so it needs to put you in your best light.

But more than a resume, LinkedIn is a vehicle to aggregate all your published articles and papers, slide shows, audio files, videos, infographics and other content in one easy to find place.

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Rebecca H. Goldberg, MES is an independent interactive media consultant and an Associate of Global Reach Communications Inc. Email: rebecca.h.goldberg@gmail.com. Twitter: goldberg_r. LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/pub/rebecca-h-goldberg/20/707/216

Carl Friesen, MBA, CMC, is Principal of Global Reach Communications Inc., helping business professionals in sustainability fields become recognized for expertise through publishing their ideas. Email: carl@showyourexpertise.com; Twitter: carlfriesen. www.showyourexpertise.com.

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