Danger of the Fringe

The dark-side fringe people never live in the shadows where nobody can see them. Instead, they are not only visible, but generally advertise their presence very noisily. They are hard to miss, but their hidden agenda is usually cloaked in subversive messages. This may not really be malicious behavior, but instead comes from an unnatural desire to propagandize their message even though it may not be a well thought out idea. Because we live in an age of misleading advertising, it is only natural that they mimic the Madison Avenue ruse-with-reason branding approach even if it is done subconsciously. Ah, but there’s the rub… you never know whether or not the message is real, intended to be real, or totally crap. We may fall for the sinister messages the same way we embrace important ones.

The first of the fringe players to avoid are the wannabes. These are people that know a little bit about a topic and insert themselves into discussions with an air of authority. Blogs and Twitter chats are favorite hangouts for people with little or no experience on a topic. One such expert offers job seeker advice, but has never worked in HR even though she includes those letters in her Twitter handle. Another individual participates in HR chats from her perch as marketing guru and no HR experience, but gives advice that shows the common naiveté shown by most outsiders. It doesn’t take much digging to tear down the façade, but unsuspecting people looking for information may not take the time to fully charge their crap filters. Fringe wannabes detract from the primary message generated by real players and confuse the knowledge seekers.

Another dangerous fringe expert is the know-it-all. They have developed a true sense of expertise in one area and offer their services universally in an appeal-to-authority mode to the masses. The logic used is that after seeing a demonstrated proof of ability in the subject they have mastered they will give advice on anything and everything even though they are not qualified. Every day the media blasts us with messages from accomplished actors and others who use their fame as a bully pulpit to speak on topics outside of their expertise. Many prominent business leaders publish articles claiming that certain words, principles, or practices are now obsolete because they say so. Fringe know-it-alls lead us down the path of peer steering which may not be the correct direction.

Barn-owl fringers swoop out of the darkness to feed off of social media streams. They know buzz words and offer tidbits of information based on their best guess as to the actual meaning. Many terms used in business can have entirely different meanings than the generally accepted term. Some may even sleep walk onto something that may remotely be in sync with the crowd, but usually it is because others give them the benefit of the doubt. A similar group is composed of Parrot fringers who can mimic the experts and Seagull fringers that follow in the wake of the experts in order to feed off of their message. These fringe elements are easy to follow because they spout cool jargon and sound cool, but they are leading us nowhere.

There have probably always been people in our lives that held tight to ulterior motives and sought to conceal their true intent from us. Social media and the networking tools we use are fertile soil for cultivating stealth. In spite of our desire to collaborate and educate ourselves on novel ideas… and sometimes because of it… we fall victim to the dark side of the fringe.

Exploring the Fringe

• The Definition of Fringe
• Value of the Fringe
• Danger of the Fringe (This article)
• Redefining Fringe
• Being the Fringe

 
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