Once off-line, point out why you believe the “expert” is not the right person (you took notes or recorded the interview, didn’t you? :-)).

Suggest that a workshop with in-house people and perhaps one outside consultant who you KNOW is good might be better. If you really don’t know anyone who can contribute effectively, then do it with in-house people. Make sure that you have a clear agenda and goals for the workshop and allow a specific amount of time to discuss each point and allow time for other points that may arise during discussion.

This approach ensures that your white paper will cover what is of interest to the people who will use it.

A group of interested parties all asking questions, can often achieve more than a single expert who doesn’t understand the corporate culture and is blinkered by expertise in one area, and “we’ve always done it this way”.

Honesty is fundamental, but it can be tempered with tact.

“I feel that Joe may not understand some of the specific issues we have here, as demonstrated by his response to …”

Rather than…

“Joe is an idiot and we’re wasting our time with him.”

(Joe might be married to the CEO’s daughter for all you know, and even if he isn’t, you should discuss him like he is… :-))

Respect. Even for idiots, but don’t let them waste your time.

Pete.

Here’s how I dealt with this situation.

Immediately after the call, I contacted my primary contact at the client.

I explained that although the call may have useful in their eyes, it was worthless in mine.

I told them straight up that this guy did not know anything about what we needed to know.

I suggested that we redo the call with just people inside their company and skip an outside expert.

It ended up forcing a re-examination of the outline AND created a few extra calls.

However, in the end, the result was much better.

Mike

Thanks for stopping by.

In this case, I did ask the right questions.

And the CEO was on the call.

The issue was that the topic was rather new to the business and they were seeking exert comments from the outside.

I have found this to be successful in the past. Along the lines of inviting a customer on a call to understand their pains.

Tom, I happen to know a little about RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks) - Hows that eh :).

It is pretty sad when the expert is clearly NOT an expert.

Mike

Don’t ask. He couldn’t tell.

I think diplomacy is called for, but I would let the client know “more depth is needed” rather than move forward with a dud expert.

I think the first clue that something was wrong was when they decided to pick an “outsider” as their sole SME. Maybe something to learn as a result of this is to insist that at least one person from inside the company attend these content interview sessions and provide their input. Then during the interview sessions you can defer to that company representative and say, “Do you agree with this perspective?”

If they say yes, then write the paper with the content provided. If they have a problem later on you can say that company employee agreed with each of the points in the paper.

If you let the “expert” know you can understand more then the hype.. you might get more information then you think.

Plus a few “hit” questions might stir things up.

Example:

You say big.. how big.. Google big..? and what sites do you think will be in the forefront of this big?

You what to talk social bookmarking ..then ask for secrets to his success.
Something that he would share with the people that undertand the basic..

If he does not seem to be an expert after leading questions.. then try the question “Tell us what you have done to get expert status” This is not an insult.. not if you are truly interested. And you might find that he is an expert only in tag and ping or only in one social bookmarking site.

I often think that the right questions will save a situation from anything.