Stop looking at the blog and start looking at the blogger – Part II – Uncovering Leadership

I won’t dive into the definition of leadership I’m not pretending to be an expert in this subject although I read more than few books, I also went to few leadership training and seminars to be able to recognize one.  For the sake of this post I will define leadership simply by saying that a leader is someone that spur change(s).

Example of changes:

• On a large scale:
  • Event: Scoble blocked from Facebook 
  • Change: Facebook, Google And Plaxo Join The DataPortability Workgroup
• Negative (& offline)
  • Event: Facebook Worldwide president
  • Change: I’m not sure if this is the end of the story yet but without the leadership acts of the “president” it won’t become such an event
  • A reminder to the journalism space about checking the credibility of your sources
• Online & Offline
  • Jeff Pulver – impact: fending VOIP from FCC regulation
• Personal
  • Event: Gotta Digg
  • Change: Kina Grannis‘s life

These examples are for famous dramatic changes but there are so many different changes that happen all the time when blogger leaps to leadership.

So, how do we discover this potential as early as possible and monitor it. One’s blog is just the tip of the iceberg and not enough to uncover upcoming leaders. We can only use it as a lead (prospect) for further research.

Will we see a leader search engine that will find: Maki Dosh, Caroline, Andy Beard, Laura Athavale Fitton(Pistachio) and many others?

Will we be able to track their progress, accomplishments and influence looking beyond their blog?

In this post I did not describe how to do so i.e. what can we learn from changes in the data (see first post in this series).  I’m still developing the idea and working to identify the key factors. I do see a strong correlation with being active in the offline world but not yet convinced that this is essential.

See you in the next post.