Experts don't always know what they are talking about

Experts perform a valuable function in our modern world. Whenever we get into an argument, whether heated or as a diversion, it isn't long before we reach for a forceful quote or two from an expert. Experts strengthen our confidence in views we've chosen to defend. Experts supposedly know what they're talking about because they've got the inside track on specialized knowledge. Experts are called upon to give us the final word in matters both obscure and self-evident.

And sometimes experts are wrong. Here are just a few of the more well known examples of prognostications that missed the mark.

In 1876 an internal memo at Western Union declared, "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

According to Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television, man would never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.

In 1949, Popular Mechanics boldly asserted that "computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall in 1957 said, "I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."

Commenting on the microchip, an engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM said, "But what . . . is it good for?" This was in 1968.

By 1977, the chairman and founder of NEC Ken Olson expertly demonstrated his prescience by exclaiming, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

From the entertainment industry: "Who wants to hear actors talk?" said H.M. Warner of Warner Brothers in 1927.

Gary Cooper, in turning down the leading role in "Gone With the Wind" said, "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."

And when the Decca Recording Company rejected the Beatles in 1962, their in-house experts assured management that, "guitar music is on the way out."

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value," said Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy of the Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

For a lengthier treatment on the subject of experts, and a handful of marketing articles I have published, visit: http://www.enewman.biz/M-Xpertz.html

Bottom line: Don't believe everything you hear. Even when it comes from me. I was wrong once, too.