On last week’s show I shared how my cousin the surgeon has a coffee mug that reads, “Please do not confuse your Google search with my medical degree.”

He tells me more and more patients find a bit of information on the internet and think they know something.  This, combined with our desire for simple answers often results in a “Can’t I just take a pill?” mindset.

Perhaps you’ve seen this at your radio station.

“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.  To know is not to be wise.  Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it.  There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool.  But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.”

I once worked for a company where the big boss, a brilliant thinker and dealmaker, would occasionally get in the weeds, presumably out of boredom.  Idle hands, don’tcha know.

The stories were legend about firing an overnight guy he had never met, changing a format on a whim, and dictating that a certain station have 666 songs on its playlist.  It wasn’t a number based on their music research or strategy, it was simply a number stuck in his head from an article he once read at the barber shop.  As a result the station was forced to play a bunch of songs the listeners didn’t like.  Probably not a good idea.  (See Frost Advisory #306, “Maybe We’re Asking The Wrong Question”)

Then there is the story of the executive that insisted on a marketing campaign with messaging their own research indicated would be not be effective in attracting new listeners, and the top boss who criticized the station’s music mix citing that the receptionist, because she was in the target demo, didn’t care for the station.  I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP, as Dave Barry would say.

“We would never consent to surgery from a surgeon who hadn’t been to medical school, and perhaps even more important, from one who who hadn’t kept up on the latest medical journals and training.  And yet there are people who take pride in doing their profession from a place of naïveté, unaware of or unfamiliar with the most important voices in their field.”

Expertise matters.  Experience matters.  A track record of success matters.

On next week’s show I’ll share the four stages of being really, really smart and stuff.  That’s a tease, don’tcha know.