"Expertyteace" pronounced: (expert-tight-ass) noun: A common ailment for common businesses.

It seems companies can never have enough “expert” opinions and input. They hire consultants, agencies, advisors and specialists all in the name of productivity and performance. The funny thing is more often than not these experts do more harm than good to the companies they are brought in to help.

I am one of those experts.

I have recently wrapped up a contract with a client who was not only falling victim to "expertyteace (expert-tight-ass)" they were beginning to drown in it. The upper level management would not listen to their staff, clients, retailers, brokers or anyone other than hand picked "experts" who were referred to them by other "experts". They would not invest, support or engage any opportunity with out the approval of the “experts” making the company a bit of a “tight ass” when it came to investing in its community and basically bringing things to a stand still. Ironically the experts were brought in to formulate strategies to engage their communities and grow the brands awareness in the market place on a grass roots level.

Of course every one of us experts has awesome credentials, how could we not, we were referred by other experts who were referred by experts and hired by the real experts.... management. More amusing is how each new “expert” is more qualified than the others or the last one and as such everything must follow the new experts direction. Each new expert will throw the old expert under the preverbal bus, debunking their shortcomings, blowing out their efforts and will be very quick to take credit for anything that comes their way. It’s a kind of predatorily corporate cannibalism. New eats old until new gets eaten by newer.

In theory how could anything be wrong with this cycle?

The reality is companies should be hiring experts. It is a great way to vet a theory, challenge a strategy, support directional shift and engage new markets. It is a great way to get an educated and informed opinion needed in decision-making process and most importantly get an outsiders opinion. Unfortunately the process gets skewed and all to often the ones who should be the decision makers “punt” and leave the process of deciding to the experts, who more often than not are not qualified to make decisions on behalf of the company. Welcome to CYA executive style: If the experts decision is a “winner” for the company it’s a victory for management, if it is a failure, it is the expert gets canned.

This system is fundamentally flawed and creates a win-win for all who are in charge of hiring experts, but exposes the company, its investors and employees to huge risk. In addition, there are some pretty nasty and often destructive side effects to the process.

The most notable side effect of over reliance on experts is the creation of toxicity with in the company. It can become so bad that can destroy a perfectly good team. This infectious wave sweeps through the company creating distrust, low moral, in fighting and ultimately it undermines the entire company and brand. Leaders need to be acutely aware of how moral is being affected, be transparent, inclusive and take charge of the decision making process at all times. If not they risk loosing not only the respect of their team members, but also control of their company.

The irony here is the real experts on your business are more often than not your clients, your staff and your community. The folks in the trenches tend to have real organic dialog with your customers and can tell you more about trends, risks and opportunities than any expert. They just need to be empowered to listen and share.

The best companies I have worked for have spent considerable time and effort to create channels of communication and tools that engage team members on every level of the organization. They hire experts to flush out ideas and look at best practices to engage team members in its implementation and execution. They are not afraid of the outcome or the possibility that someone may be better suited to run the show than they are…they revel in the possibility of finding that someone and empowering them to take the reigns.

For me, I keep doing what I do and have found that the tread marks from the bus tires seem to heal much faster now than they used….

Having been blessed or cursed with the entrepreneurial gene I constantly find myself vetting startup ideas, being challenged by brands that have long lived their usefulness or brands trying to make a change in their identity. My insight is more often than not challenged and then dismissed, mainly because it goes against the logic of conventional marketing wisdom. I ma a believer in the emotion and image of the brand and how those to elements contribute to the authenticity and character of a brand. It sounds personal. It is....

I have an affinity for branding and its place in the totally misunderstood science of marketing. I love how we continue to try and create tangible metrics for the the intangible and want so bad to understand that invisible element of "cool" that gets brands connecting with consumers. Cool comes from being naked...not literally, but metaphorically. A brand is a sum of all parts. It is one part staff, one part ingredients, one part mission, one part associates...all the parts equal the whole picture that consumers see. They see with a set of lenses that is so clear that they capture details those of us closest to our brands often over look. They see past the fancy wrappers, messaging, packaging, ads, spokesmodels and even green movements and see a "naked" product and the people behind it...Social Media has only heightened the consumers ability to see through the layers and get to the nakedness. This ability has created an opportunity. An opportunity for smart and dynamic brands to engage their consumers through acknowledging the conversations and responding with change or action.

Social media and its ability to leverage regional organic conversations into the mainstream media is amazing. It does not surprise me that brands are now realizing it takes more than a mere presence to succeed on SM platforms. It takes genuine engagement and a dialog of relevance to connect to their consumers and their communities. Again, here in lies the challenge...so many of todays marketing professionals are complete devoid of the values the brands they represent posses, therefore making it impossible for them to speak the language of their consumer or their community. If they plan to or hope to engage SM they need to dive back into their brands and become so intimate with them that they are the living embodiment of their products. This ability to morph into the brand should be one of the most valuable skill sets an employee can possess and one employers work to cultivate.

I hope this marks the beginning of a shift in the corporate perception of the role of a marketing team with in their respective companies and brands. It should no longer be the home of focus groups, trade show booths, advertisements, collateral design and company parties. Marketing is the new front line and needs to be supported, staffed and followed as it leads the messaging of the company into the world.

Interesting follow up article in Forbes regarding the "Rush" to Social Media sites by larger companies as a way of creating direct messaging...

Brands Hype Social Network Presence
Steve Rubel, 03.07.10, 11:04 PM ET

Today many marketers are tripping over one another to invade social networks in force. There is a social media land grab underway as businesses rush to set up hubs on the "big three:" Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

All at once, businesses large and small recognize that they need to go where the people congregate. And with 100 million Facebook users in the U.S., this movement is understandable. When your local pizzeria is promoting their Facebook page at the register, as mine does, then you know that marketing has changed.

However, with this land grab, a controversial shift is underway. The trusty dot-com URL--or at least its role in marketing--may be dying.

Some companies are de-emphasizing Web spaces they own, such as their corporate Web sites, in all of their ads. Instead, they're pushing people towards spaces they occupy on social-media hubs. Case in point: UniBall. During the Winter Olympic games I was surprised to see the pen manufacturer use its TV ads to direct people to its Facebook page. There, UniBall is giving away 10,000 pens. Nowhere in its ads does Uniball promote its own Web site. It's all about Facebook. Clever.

Much the same, I noticed outdoor ads for the New York Knicks basketball team had only three calls for action--an SMS code, Twitter and Facebook. Again, no URL. A branded dot-com destination wasn't mentioned.

Finally, during a recent Mashable event in New York, Columbia Journalism professor Sree Sreenivasan pointed out that this is becoming the norm in the motion-picture business. Perhaps this is a function of living in a world where people hardly use bookmarks any more and just use Google.

If this all sounds familiar, it should. It is reminiscent of the mid-1990s when URLs started popping up in TV ads and billboards. Or worse, when AOL keywords first appeared in the early 1990s.

However, this time it's different.

For starters, when marketers promote their social network hubs over their URLs they risk that savvy consumers will see right through it--or won't even register it. Consumers are likely to perceive corporate real estate on Facebook as a lame attempt to appear cool and hip. Consumers are already skeptical of advertising and this just contributes to it.

Second, the use of "heavy artillery"--e.g. advertising--to round up more fans and followers is equally controversial. This would be fine if it lead to true person-to-person engagement. However, many brands are just using their Twitter and Facebook presences to spew out updates, without any thought to how consumers will benefit by essentially opting in. UniBall is providing value, but others don't go to such lengths.

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Finally, much the same, very few businesses treat social networks as personal, conversational spaces. Hardly any feature real employees. And a scant few aim to advance shared interests.

So while it's welcome that marketers are beginning to promote the hubs they occupy in all of the relevant communities, few are really optimizing them into true relationship builders. Most are devoid of humans, e.g. employees, and many look like faceless companies that are trying to check off boxes or slap shiny logos on their site.

In some ways, it makes sense to me that marketers are emphasizing their spaces where people are spending time and where they can be easily found. However, at the same time, with so few understanding what it takes--people--to really build credible communities and relationships, I wonder how long this trend will last. Is a backlash inevitable?

If I were a dot-com URL, I wouldn't write my will just yet.

Steve Rubel is SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman, the world's largest independent PR firm. He is charged with helping clients identify emerging technologies and trends that can be applied in marketing communications programs. He also explores these topics on his lifestream site.