This lady has organised “thought leadership events”
www.parmindervir.com
What? Sounds a bit Orwellian. What happens if you do not want your thoughts to be led, might Big Brother send round "The Thought Police?"
Perhaps one day......
So I looked up “thought leadership” and “thought leadership events” as online searches and found - total gobbledy-gook.
I am not a complete fool but what are these people on about?
http://events.top-consultant.com/UK/careerconference.aspx?ID=144
http://uk.country.csc.com/en/mcs/mcs194/2756.shtml
Here they have “a library of thought leadership” aimed at schools,
www.planonline.org/leadership/index.htm
Clearly there must be a great deal of money in all of this, judging by the enthusiasm, plethora of fancy websites and all the “hype?” Is that the right trendy word?
Then I looked at Wikipedia.
A Thought Leader is a forward thinking person with innovative ideas. Then why not just say that! What is happening to our lovely language?
Well actually it is an example of the new use of language, and you will either adopt phrases like this, use them, embrace them and support their ridiculousness, or be perceived as old-fashioned and past it – whatever “it” is! And then you might miss out because all the world of big business wants now is young, young, young, for the “Great Leap Forward.”
Unfortunately you see, I am now an old fogey. I’m a square. I’m obviously, definitely not “with it” anymore. I do not swing, I’m not cool, in fact I am probably well past my sell-by date. Soon I’ll have to take up knitting, hide my whiskey bottles and my family can spoon-feed me mush – if they can be bothered to spare the time.
Seriously though, unlike the silly words just used it is interesting to learn that this expression has not come from youths' street culture.
“The term was first coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy & Business. The term was used to designate interview subjects for that magazine who had contributed new thoughts to business.” (Wikipedia)
The phrase was then taken up by Yuppies. Obviously they need their own lingo in order to recognise each other and keep out the old fogies and ignorant, un-hip riff-raff like myself. A bit like the Teddy Boys, the Punks of the 70s, or more recently - Valley Girls. Look at this:
www.orionpartners.co.uk/downloads/Thougth%20Leadership%20Dinner%20Notes%2001.03.07%20v2.pdf
I find both the tone and some of the language here quite disturbing,
“management by stealth..” “sneaking up..” “give them the sense they are in control”
Sounds like "social engineering" to me, now what does that mean again….?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONEYGU_7EqU