The New Credibility

A blog I follow Overcoming Bias often discusses the perils of academia, relating to teaching and publishing. It's interesting to observe what I think is a coming change in how "credibility" is assessed, stemming from blogs like Overcoming Bias. Those people who make daily contributions to a particular area (i.e. bloggers) have a chance to become known to a much broader population than just their narrow research community. These bloggers can reference one another, give fleshed out arguments that are free of editorial dissection, and in general, get their voice into a broader discussion. In academia, cred is based on where someone went to school, and who they published with. On the interwebs, it's all about the eyes hitting your site, and the discussions you start. There are some young upstarts who are being read by many more people than if they were slogging away in a grad program.

I don't have any hard answers on how someone can do this, but it seems as though no matter what your field, if you want to have a broad influence, whether for clear cut business or activist ends, or to be just generally influential socially, you need to build a credibility community. These are people who are recognized by a particular group as being legit. By interacting with them, and getting their approval, your star rises. An example of this is two other blogs I read, Marginal Revolution, manned by George Mason economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tarbarrok, and Asymmetrical Information, womaned by Megan McArdle. Often the blogs refer back to one another's articles, which I believe benefited Megan a bit more, as she didn't have a PhD (although does have an MBA from the highly-respected University of Chicago). As she has ascended, she has developed a reputation as a journalist who has the goods on economic info, so the Marginal Revolution boost has certainly helped. She has many detractors on her page, but her jobs with the Economist and now The Atlantic establish that she is a very knowledgeable and capable writer. That said, it was talent and the credibility she received from others that has helped her, and she is now building on that by lending her credibility as well as receiving credibility from others. You can see that in her current circle, where writers like Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Julian Sanchez, and others.

More on how I think all this relates to my previous post on what the real secrets to success are tomorrow (or perhaps later today, depending on how my day goes).