Be careful of how you research information and professionals in this information age
People today have wonderful opportunities to get information at our fingertips. In ancient times, when I was growing up, my parents used to send me to the library or at least to the encyclopedia to find out important things. Parents today are suggesting, “google it”, and the internet-connected telephone that the teen carries can instantly give them a briefing on the topic they were asking about, whether it’s a topic of importance, or just a question of whether a celebrity is pregnant.
The problem with getting information this quickly and easily is that you don’t always know the source. Wikipedia, as large as it’s variety of information might be, is created with a collaborative process that leaves you wondering if you’ve just read the information from the horses’ mouth, the person who researched it, the person hired to advertise for it, or the person who is trying to slander it. Is your reporter biased by any political or personal motive? Is the reporter experienced in the topic they’re talking about or are they just spouting off at the mouth over something they just heard on the news a minute ago?
About a half hour ago, I heard a radio show where Nick Clooney (a renowned reporter, and father of George) talked about this topic as it relates to reporters and blogs. His comment was that the reporters of his day, in order to be successful, had to get out of their offices and experience things, get some bruises, talk to the people in the trenches (literally, he was talking about reporting on war issues as well as general reporting, and had given an example of reporters actually squatting side by side with men in a foxhole to get the information they were reporting about). He pointed out the difference between that real life experience, versus sitting in your mother’s basement with your computer, blogging about something you heard about, but did not experience. The comment I remembered that Clooney made was that these style of “reporters’” knowledge was “a mile wide and an inch deep”, meaning that these people fancied themselves to have valuable comments on nearly everything, but know very little about anything, giving the content of their reporting a very shallow quality, meaningless despite being articulate and prolific.
The irony of a blog about being careful of bloggers, about commenting that people are blogging about facts they heard a minute ago, stating that I was inspired by this radio program that took place about a half hour ago, is intentional. I hope everyone reading can say they picked up on the irony. This is a tactic I’ve used in trial, leading jurors to come to their own obvious conclusion by giving them the information, while not spoon feeding the conclusion. In trial, it keeps the jurors interested, to feel that they’re part of the process of investigating an issue, and then when I later help them draw the conclusions by saying it out loud, it’s simply to catch the few who may have missed the point. Now that you hear my caution, read on to find out whether I have depth to my discussion, or whether I am just an old fuddy-duddy, spouting nastiness about the internet…
My irony, and my point, is to remind others that it is important to determine whether an information source is worth listening to, or whether it should be dismissed as too shallow to matter. Just because someone agrees with you and is eloquent about it, does not mean they have the background needed to give you good information. If information is what you’re looking for, look behind what is being said, to figure out how the knowledge came into the hands of the speaker/reporter. I am not saying that there is no value to reading bloggers have to say when they are pretending expertise, but have none. Sometimes it’s very helpful to see what others are saying about a topic, or hear what words someone else has used to describe it. For my purposes, for example, reviewing what a person with no experience on the topic has to say is a good measure of how my jurors will be thinking about it if I have to explain it in court. Also, seeing what the blogs and advertisers say about a product will help me understand how my clients, who are often more savvy than the average person, got caught by a scheme, scam, or poorly conceived contractual obligation. Granted, if my clients were really savvy, they would have consulted an attorney such as myself before taking the leap rather than after they need to be rescued from it, but that’s a topic for a different post… let’s look at my particular experience that would give me more than a random person’s knowledge about how to research an issue…
For me, this particular knowledge came into my possession by years of advising others on how to recognize a scam, usually after they have been scammed. Hindsight is 20/20, but also valuable to use in order to avoid being scammed again… so with the old adage “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” in mind, even if we cannot recover from the current mistake in trusting the wrong person or making the wrong deal, I walk my clients through the process of figuring out what was wrong with the deal so that they will recognize it before it happens next time around. On occasion, I consult with a client before they enter into a deal, and I need to explain the concept of “due diligence”. “Due diligence” is a very important term in some legal areas, and someone who fails to do “due diligence” in those areas may find themselves on the wrong end of a very expensive lawsuit. In other areas ”due diligence” is simply a good idea before making a decision that could have financial implications. Finally, in matters of everyday life (that gossip about whether a celebrity is pregnant, getting married, or died of an overdose), “due diligence” simply means that you won’t run around repeating malicious gossip, but rather have sought the most reliable source possible before making your conclusions. Your own credibility is at stake… are you the person who always cries “wolf” to your friends about the latest nonsense you heard “somewhere”, or are you the ones who, when you speak, they listen? Due diligence in checking out tidbits of information is what makes the difference.
I have also learned that going to court in any opposed case is more successful if I research opposing counsel. Are they a baby lawyer with a super-slick website, or is it a grizzled old dude whose most high tech equipment is his 20 year old fax machine? Is opposing counsel well-thought of, or have they had lawsuits and complaints against them on a regular basis. Due diligence is not only important in hiring lawyers, it's important in hiring anyone, selecting a tenant, choosing a business to purchase. Beware of turning down a professional for the fact that someone did complain against them previously. What you want to do, when you find that there has been a complaint against a professional’s license, is check with the licensing agency to find out what the character of the complaint was. If you are looking at hiring a contractor, and they have been in business for 30 years with one complaint against them 5 years ago, and that one complaint was that the color used was moss green instead of pea green and a bit of color was splashed onto the driveway as they cleaned up for the day, and the licensing body's punishment for the validated complaint was to send the contractor out to repaint and use some paint remover on the driveway, you should think differently about that potential contractor than you think about the one who is currently awaiting hearing on possible suspension of his contracting license for taking five different clients' money and never finishing the jobs.
Inevitably, no matter what type of professional you’re looking to hire, a contractor, a lawyer, a psychologist, a tutor or financial planner, undoing a mistake after the fact is often difficult, if not impossible, so there is value in completing your “due diligence” in any hiring or contracting decision, rather than just letting yourself be swayed by a pretty website and slick promises of high quality service.
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