What’s with the crystal ball gazing? Enough already.

Now it may seem rather hypocritical of me to write this on a blog, but I’m suffering from an acute case of advice-a-phobia from too many opinions expressed over the social blogosphere.

Maybe there are too many industry folk with too much time on their hands? Or perhaps my brain is just too small to accommodate all this information? Or perhaps every other agency really does employ at least a dozen social networking experts? But it seems that the world and his virtual wife spend most of their time trying persuade us that they may know what the recruitment sector of the future is going to look like or that they have this social networking stuff cracked.

There are, of course, a number of very useful sites, blogs and newsletters that are worth the effort (The Buzz from careersiteadvisor is a very good window onto a number of useful posts) but one recent, deliberately provocative, posting on RI5 last month has shown exactly how much time people seem to spend now ‘talking the talk’, rather than dare I say – doing the job they’re paid to do.

It’s not the article that I take issue with. I’m sure Graham knew he’d provoke a debate. It’s the fact that it resulted in more band wagon jumping than in the days of the great Apache tribes. I’m delighted that so many people are so keen to share the secret of future business success, but so many conflicting opinions do rather showcase the industry’s insecurities rather than our confidence in the market.

And sadly I’m sure that it’s an accurate barometer of where we are as an industry at the moment. But perhaps if the doyens of the industry spent more time talking to their clients and simply responding to their needs, rather than scratching their itch for personal PR by lecturing to their peers, or donning the deerstalker to play Sherlock Holmes and go searching for clues in the great blogosphere – maybe we’d be somewhat closer to harnessing this bucking bronco of an industry.

Come to think of it, what are you doing reading this? Get on with some real work.