How to become an Influencer.

[Padraig]

Seriously though. I wonder if Dale Carnegie is making a comeback.


Influencing degree to be offered by Irish university - BBC News

[french frank]

I saw that, but didn't read the story. So I was unsure whether it was teaching HOW to be an influencer or the general phenomenon of 'influencing', its effects, the sinister side &c. So read the story, then ...

How to be an influencer, then. Selling, monetising . I think it would be as popular as a degree in beer drinking.

[Serial_Apologist]

How to be an influencer? Post messages on this forum!

[smittims]

Well, at least it's not an overrated accolade; surely everyone accepts that it's on a level with 'fashion-blogger' in a list of the most valuable professions. It's a welcome change from the days when lots of people were being described as 'composers' for stringing together a melody on an auto-harmony keyboard. .

[Padraig]

I thought that 'Influencers' were a rare enough commodity, worthy of some validation via a course designed to provide some skills. Given what seems to be experts emerging all the time from social media, validated by huge numbers of followers and offering 'influence' on all manner of topics, I hoped that someone would tap into the enthusiasm for 'Influencing' among young people wondering what career to follow, with a course to raise the profile above the level of fashion blogger. It seems to me that Carlow University is trying to do just that. A four year university course is no walk over and deserves a chance. Who knows what young people today will decide what really needs influencing once they have got over message boards.

[eighthobstruction]

....Surely Dominic Cummings was an influencer of 'some kind', who influenced a whole lot of'.....just to show you can do 'it' without high social media presence....

[Old Grumpy]

....Surely Dominic Cummings was an influencer of 'some kind', who influenced a whole lot of'.....just to show you can do 'it' without high social media presence....

Did he not have high social media presence? I ask as one who is not active in any social medium other than this forum.

[french frank]

Did he not have high social media presence? I ask as one who is not active in any social medium other than this forum.

He had (has?) a blog, but wasn't he engaged by Johnson because he already had a high public profile as Director of Vote Leave? Just the very chap you need to be influenced by. (He'd also worked as a SPAD to Gove.)

[Old Grumpy]

He had (has?) a blog, but wasn't he engaged by Johnson because he already had a high public profile as Director of Vote Leave? Just the very chap you need to be influenced by. (He'd also worked as a SPAD to Gove.)

Yes, a quick internet search before my post revealed this: https://dominiccummings.com/tag/media/

However, I haven't read it to check if there is anything recent - CBA, TBH!

[french frank]

I haven't read it to check if there is anything recent - CBA, TBH!

MN

[Globaltruth]

Cummings is on Substack (an organised set of blogs)
You can subscribe to his free nuggets of wisdom, or pay to receive even more words presumably containing even more nuggets.


Cummings' work chum during his time at No. 10, and embroiled in the Barnard Castle imbroglio, was Chloe Watson, who now has her own show on BBC Radio 4:

Former Downing Street strategist, adviser to Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave insider Cleo Watson examines the building blocks and dark art of political campaigning.

I'm not going to promote any of the above by links. I have not read or listened to any of the above, simply fyi.
Add my name to the CBA list.

Other influencers are available

(e.g. Nick Timothy - one of May's disastrous SPADs is declared as a Conservative candidate in the next GE)

[Padraig]

So the current crop of influencers and special advisers have had a bad press. Time for a change? With a different motivation qualified political influencers could have done better.

[johncorrigan]

So the current crop of influencers and special advisers have had a bad press. Time for a change? With a different motivation qualified political influencers could have done better.

I was horrified by Suella Braverman's comment to the right-wing thinktank in US yesterday where she called on 'Thought Leaders' to make changes to the rights to asylum - yikes!

[Serial_Apologist]

So the current crop of influencers and special advisers have had a bad press. Time for a change? With a different motivation qualified political influencers could have done better.

But what exactly would a political influencer qualification consist of?

[french frank]

But what exactly would a political influencer qualification consist of?

For me it's the whole idea of people being trained to 'influence' others. Inform them, yes. But persuade them to do something which is somebody's else's interest, whether commercial, political or anything else, seems sinister to me. If people aren't equipped to make decisions on their own, why persuade them to make certain decisions at all?