As you’ve named me I feel entitled to pen a reply, just to give a view from the so-called guru’s perspective.

I have never aspired to be called a guru. I’m not sure I like the term, particularly as it’s applied these days in our business. If it means that my name is among the first few that come to mind when fundraisers gather and try to name prominent practitioners, that’s fine. If it helps sell books, ditto. But if it’s simply a parade of the strongest egos, then I’d rather be left out.

People also judge you by the company you keep. Those you mention are august company indeed, but privilege decreases when shared and I’m not sure there’s much prestige transfer to be gathered from some of the supposed gurus around today. Too much of a thing devalues the currency.

And there’s also a considerable downside. People imagine gurus have it easy, so they love to see us fall and to give us a hard time. Our prominence is often grudged. I’ve noticed this most recently when trying to promote the SOFII service at seminars. Most people get it but invariably among the evaluations there’s some sniffy accusations of self-interest and personal promotion. Yet SOFII is a free service, it’s really useful and it’s getting more valuable by the week. How could promoting such a free asset be self-interest, from someone as long in the tooth as me? Of course most people are not so stupid as to imagine such a thing…but quite a few are. I’m not sure if the term ‘guru’ has an opposite, but perhaps they’re it.

How do you get to be a guru? I’ve always assumed it was to do with writing books, or at least producing a broad body of work of some quality. If it’s just a term for sparkling stage performance, then again, leave me out.

But maybe the concept of eager individuals striving in the pursuit of excellence and recognition should be encouraged, particularly if a way could be found to keep egos out of it . Such good-natured competition should drive up quality, particularly if women could be persuaded to join in. It should lead to better articles, books, seminars and thinking. Improved quality should be what it’s about, not accolades. Personally, I’d much rather leave that to the lone enthusiastic fundraiser in a remote outpost who takes the trouble to write to tell me that he, or she, has enjoyed or benefited from something I wrote. Call me a guru if you want to, but accolades such as these are the only ones I really value, at the end of the day.

All the best,

Ken

So, while I will continue to learn from you and many others, I think that gurus definitely have their place. Hmm…maybe we should think of this as crowdsourcing. If most of my colleagues think this woman knows what she’s talking about, then I’ll listen to her too.

I started to respond and realized I was writing a blog… so you’ve inspired the birth of my latest blog.

Thanks for being my morning Guru