Landing page - introducing the instructor (and PU journey)

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on March 18, 2021, 6:54 am

Quote from Transitioned on March 18, 2021, 1:17 am

When I came here I was so jaded on low value courses and fake experts.  I wanted info I could trust and a learning community.

I saw your slick marketing skin on the site and thought arrgh....another snake oil seller.

It was your amazing analysis in the forums that sold me.  And your scientific basis.  You can't learn anything complicated without systems thinking.

Thank you Transitioned, that's some awesome feedback!

If anyone else reading here has their own experience on how they felt when first landing here, I'd be very happy to read.

THE MARKETING FOR CREDENTIALS

Personally, I see credentials as another form of marketing -or even slight manipulation-.

See the prominent "Ph.D." in David Tian's marketing, a guy who sells dating courses and never mentions his Ph.D. is in old Chinese literature -or something like that, but totally unconnected to anything people-related anyway-.
Or the Ph.D. of John Gray, who rushed to get one online after he realized his "man are from mars, women are from venus" was booming and he wanted to beef up his authority.

And of course, the beloved "Dr." Joe Dispenza, an actual chiropractor.

I'm not a licensed psychologist, I did a bachelor and master in sociology/communication studies, and signed up to a couple of associations to (IAAP and APA, I've read some negative reviews online saying that I made those up because you need to be a psychologist to sign up but it's not true, they accept it as long as your degree/work is in a closely related field. Associations collect fees after all, so they have an incenitve in enlarging the user base, rather than being too restrictive).

THE PERSONAL REASON OF AVOIDING UNI CREDENTIALS

I guess there are some (partly subconscious) reasons I don't stress the "credentials" too much -except for the fact that a master is not much after all-.

And the reason is that I haven't found many great professors to look up to.

Most of my learning also came outside of university, so it feels disingenuous to present myself as a product of higher education. For my life, as well as for the work I do here, it's more about self-education, than university.

And this is not to bash university which seems to be popular these days. University is great, it's just not where I got most of my learning.

• In academia it's politics first, wisdom second

The politics side of power dynamics is huge in universities and academic research. And not always in a good way. I always rejected that when I saw it, and that made me feel like I didn't fully belong in that environment.

• Academia Breaks Little Ground in Practical Social Skills

Finally, I also never saw the world of academia as a place for fast advancement of practical wisdom.

It tells you a lot for example that academics have argued for decades on whether emotional or social intelligence even exists when it would have been enough to look at many socially poor "geniuses", and it would be obvious.

Like you say, system thinking would have quickly allowed to move past that debate, and focus instead on how to measure it and improve it. But systemic thinking isn't always a thing in the world of research.

STRATEGIC REASON ON NOT OVERPLAYING THE "CREDENTIALS" CARD

There is also a strategic reason.

And that reason is that if you overplay the scientific side, the scientific side also becomes a straight jacket, and a conduit for easy attacks.

The more you present yourself as "purely based on science", the more you become an easy target of the "citation war".
And it becomes a game to who's higher scientific authority:

• "Where's your citation on frame ignoring being effective?"
• "Where's the paper that collaboration works better in life?"
• "That research you mention on Machiavellianism has no external validity"
• "That research on women appreciating wealthy men is old, this other new says that women don't care about that"

Etc. etc.
Quite a sterile game leading nowhere, but which is quite popular in academia.

THE ADVANTAGES OF CREDENTIALS

However, there also many advantages of boasting credentials -and academic credentials-.

That's why so many do it, after all.

And I think I've noticed that Google has been more and more promoting websites that play that credentials and citation game.
"Science of People" is an example.
A good website, with good content. It's frankly less scientific than this website, but it plays the science card big time, and it ranks very high on Google.

So maybe something to think about for me.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on March 18, 2021, 6:54 am

Gosh, that was a long reply.

But yeah, you hit on something that I had been thinking about for a while :).

Quote from Matthew Whitewood on March 18, 2021, 8:26 am

This is very interesting.
I was reading about whether you should make logos prominent on a website.

There was this article:
Bigger Logos Make You Look Smaller

In this case, logos are like a form of "credentials".
Because branding gives you credentials.
I view putting academic credentials in a similar light.

Amazon and Microsoft have small logos.
I don't even think about Google's logo.

I think putting what I will get out of the course is most important.
I thought that the succinct message on the front page is excellent:

Power University distills thousands of studies into practical strategies for acquiring power, status, & riches.
If you aim for the top 1%, this is your place.
Use it responsibly, and go get what you deserve.

I wanted a place that distills studies into something I can apply practically.

The thing is that I stumbled upon one of your articles from Google before reading the front page.
Maybe that's the strategy of having multiple channels.
Though I bought the course way before the new website.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on March 18, 2021, 5:23 pm

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience, Matthew!