@revhtree,
I was able to catch some of the live stream, and when i first read this thread, the day before your talk, i immediately thought, "you should've already had your speach/talk/presentation completed and polished". But after watching I realized it was more for supporting evedince through polling to drive certain points home.
One thing that I always held in reserve about social media is that it lends voice to someone who doesn't deserve to have a voice, simply because they're entertaining and can tell a story, yet they posses zero credentials to be on that stage. More particular people we perceive as influencers.
But really the problem doesn't lie solely with the influencers. The audience in which feels they need to be entertained in order to be fed knowledge, information or in most cases opinion on how they should think are really the "king makers". I would argue the audience are in no position to make such decisions because we're using the wrong criteria to seat these influencers.
Case and point was they guy you shared a stage with. I don't know him, and I'm sure he's a cool dude to hang out with and could be the life of a party, my impression was he gave nothing to the discussion and simply filled the air with noise. I mean that in the nicest way possible, he was high energy, but I'm guessing that you at least took time to prepare an outline for your presentation with visuals to direct points and conversation to a particular conclusion (liking the forums to a city was clever). I would go out on a limb and say he gave zero or very little to preperation.
But what surprised me was when the audience was given the chance to ask questions, they were directed to him about favorites this, how often that. Which tells me he was hired to simply entertain nothing more. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as the designation was given. That's the world we live in.
We have blurred the line between educational and entertainment, and the audience no longer can tell the difference. Because of that, we are elevating these influencers to a position to be seen by new hobbyists, and unofficially (maybe officially) given the task to provide the very foundation in which this new hobbyist will build his/her knowledge and experience. Do we want the people that barely built their foundation with a very narrow perspective to be influencing these new hobbyists?
I draw a parallel to the entertainment industry. We all have our favorite actors and actresses. For the most part, by design we don't know a lot about them, their stance on certain issues. And that's not on accident, they know their sole purpose is to entertain, not to use the platform to push personal agenda. Because let's face it, if my favorite actor/actress weighed in on a subject, I would probably lean their direction, especially if it's a subject I know little about. Is that my pitfall? Who's fault is it that I now have an opinion on a subject I know very little about?
Perhaps we should start separating influencers into categories of entertaining and knowledgeable. Allow the entertainers to tell a story, and give the ones with knowledge and wisdom the platform to educate and keep them separate. I personally would be on board with that. But I know my opinion is of the minority.