10 Ideas That Are Changing the World We Live, Work and Play In (Part 3a)

World-changing idea #3: The Ebbing Value of Expertise (Part 2a)

Objectivity is supposedly the superior cognitive stance to take in searching for truth. But is that always the case? How often do we hear experts battling it out in courtrooms over two contradictory propositions based on alleged objective analysis?

The ubiquity of communications in our lives – including news and talk shows 24/7 – contributes to shaping an uncertain picture of what’s true and what’s not true in the mind of the market. The collective mind lacks the certainty it once had. People are depending less on the mills of reason, which produce certainty, than on the chemistry of their feelings – which produce only probabilities – in shaping shape their views. Stated another way, people are being less objective and more subjective in shaping their thoughts and decisions.

The aging of society is one of the biggest reasons for today’s more subjectively based zeitgeist. People’s confidence in their feelings tends to increase in the second half of life. More and more, “objective” facts appear to be someone’s opinion. This especially seems true to those who recall how often they’ve seen a study revealing some new truth that is later overturned by another study.

After four or five decades of life, human fallibility becomes all the more self-evident to many of us. The good news is that this inclines many of us to be forgiving of human error. However, it also makes us more guarded – less trusting of claims by others irrespective of any objective research behind the claims.

When we’re young, we often insist on objective proof that some claim is valid. This is why atheism generally arises earlier in life. By mid-adulthood, most of us become more comfortable with intuited conclusions whether or not they can be supported by objective reasoning.

Throughout the last half of the 20^th century, marketing was finely tuned to the objectively biased younger mind. Product ads cited allegedly scientific reasons why the advertised product was better than its competitors. Such advertising is out of tune with the subjectively biased zeitgeist of today. Marketing must court the emotional, intuitive, feeling side of the brain – the right brain.

The right brain is the pattern-seeking side of the brain. It looks for connections and relationships. Unlike the 20^th century market who pitched to the logical, reasoning, objective left side of the brain, 21^st century marketers will find greater success courting the right brain.

The right brain is the portal to the left brain: if something doesn’t feel right to the right brain, it’s not likely to earn landing rights in the left brain – especially among today’s adult majority.

The Internet has increased the confidence of people in their subjectively-derived view of the world. Everyone can be an expert in what ever field he or she chooses to be an expert. Whether that is true or not is unimportant. The fact that people believe they can become expert in a matter through the Internet is what is important.

Most of us probably have at least one story we can tell about how someone we know learned something on the Internet that they had been unable to find out about elsewhere. In some cases, that Internet acquired information has saved a life.

We have a story in our family about how the Internet was the ultimate source of a new life. For nearly 20 years one of my daughters had a condition that no doctor she went to could name. Two of its symptoms were morbid obesity and infertility. About 10 years ago, my daughter learned the name of her malady on the Internet and how she could get relief from its symptoms. In just 11 months she shed 110 pounds, and with her return to normal weight she became fertile. Within a year she had her first natural born child – a daughter named Elizabeth. She had already adopted three children.

Due to that and several other experiences – one that was life threatening to one of her adopted daughters – my daughter is not easily impressed with someone's alleged expertise. She, like many people in today’s marketplace, want to explore the relationship potential before getting around to the left brain chore of assessing the matter of expertise.

So, the challenge to marketers in this day when the value customers accord alleged expertise is waning is to learn better how to develop the relationship between providers and customers. That’s not easy to for practitioners in a field noted for crowing about being the best, the greatest value, the most dependable in its line, the most beautiful of all, etc. Today’s zeitgeist calls for building human relationships with customers – not commercial or transactional relationships.