BySeth Matlins,
Forbes Staff.
Not ha-ha funny but rather the hard-to-define, hard-to-precisely-quantify, kind of funny, like how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is funny.
In our world, which is to say the world of business globally and marketing specifically, influence often hides-in-plain-sight, and can be confused with visibility, or a type of popularity measured by follower counts, “likes”, or the stuff of performative thought leadership.
And while these can provide and be platform for the exercise of influence, in and of themselves, they’re not proof of it. They’re optics, and as the unreliable testimony of an eye-witness proves, optics can distort.
