Thought leadership. Personal branding. Buzz words in social media. But there's meat on these bones. I've had so many conversations in the past few weeks surrounding the the value of social media that I figured I better write it down. These conversations with friends and colleagues revolved around the topics of thought leadership, knowledge abundance and the nature of employment in the 21st Century. Over the past decade we've seen a fundamental shift in the nature of thought leadership and expertise. Forty years ago if I were looking for an expert I'd generally find him in one of two places: a major corporation or a university. Looking for an expert on business process? Try Wharton or a Big 8 (yeah, remember that?) accounting firm. Looking for an expert on technology? That would be IBM, AT&T or MIT. For the bulk of the 20th Century thought leadership generally resided with entities rather than individuals. The turn of the 20th Century brought us the Industrial Revolution and