"Fallibility adds credibility"

This was a notable quote from David Weinberger at the WOMMA WOMBAT 3 conference in New Orleans. Well-known as co-author of The Cluetrain Mainfesto, David is always provocative and this is a provocative statement for marketers and PR people.

We communications professionals are taught that our messages, our positioning, the production values, etc. etc. should be perfect and we work very hard at it. But in the social media realm, striving for perfection is wrong. David cited Wikipedia's "warning labels" on articles where there haven't been enough contributors or there is a real debate among contributors; these articles contain a label that discloses that the article may not be 100% perfect. Rather than undercutting the authority of Wikipedia as an information source it enhances it.

I passed on this advice yesterday at the American Strategic Management Institute's Branding Excellence workshop. An attendee stated that his company wanted to engage in social media, but wanted to be sure to do it "right". I said not to worry so much, get started, and just be ready to take some criticism, adapt and change as required and move on.

Why is striving for perfection so wrong in this space? It is inauthentic. I spent Tuesday afternoon at the Business Development Institute's Authentic Communications conference, where we had a lengthy discussion about what authenticity is. I riffed on David's statement, saying that as people, we all know no one and no thing is perfect, so perfection, by its nature, isn't authentic. PS Fast Company has a good article on authenticity in the May issue.

I do depart from David on one point: at the Society for New Communications Research conference in Las Vegas, he said that spelling, grammar, etc. don't matter, that speed is more important, and that those little imperfections add to credibility. A couple of minor typos, OK (I know I find them in my old posts when I go back to re-read them). Occasional tense disagreements -- maybe. But total stream of consciousness with no self-editing doesn't cut it with me. It may be self-expression, but it's not communication. Too many grammatical violations will confuse the reader, and if they don't understand what you are trying to say, you as a writer have failed.

In summary: do the best you can, don't obsess over every little detail, be ready to fix something when you are called out, but forget perfection. As Martin Luther advised, "Sin boldly!"