Thought leadership in the midst of its biggest transformation in decades.

The term was coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, then editor-in-chief of Strategy & Business magazine.

Kurtzman used it to describe something written by an industry expert with a strong point of view.

It’s evolved into an industry in itself in which executives and consultants showcase ideas to bolster their reputation and win business.

Having remained little changed for years, thought leadership is now being upended by the speed and ease of traveling on the LinkedIn highway.

Articles that once took weeks or even months to conceive, draft, edit and publish are in danger of being rendered irrelevant by the bold and quick denizens on social media.

LinkedIn provides a large distribution channel with no barriers to entry.

Working at McKinsey or having PR people arrange access to publish in Forbes and Fortune are no longer requirements to be a thought leader.

ANYONE can show up.

I saw a good example of the trend this week. The WSJ published an article about Spotify’s struggles in the podcast market.

A raft of experts jumped into the conversation. Two caught my eye.

The pieces were striking for the speed of execution, POV and journalistic details.

The first was a piece by Chris Erwin, founder of San Diego-based Rockwater Industries, who argued that Spotify may be struggling because they overpaid, but the podcast industry is still solid.

Dave Harreveld, CFO at Ascern Advisers in Brisbane, drilled into the specifics of the $1 billion Spotify spent on podcasting, pointing out that half of the money went to build two studios and sign up four series.

One of the cardinal rules of publishing is that to thrive you must be either fast or deep. Superstars are both.

What we are seeing on LinkedIn is a dramatic increase in the metabolism of thought leadership.

One payoff for being fast was that Erwin and Harreveld were included in a LinkedIn roundup about the Spotify story, amplifying their voices.

They understand something the McKinskeys and Deloittes and others will learn: These days the business audience is rapidly moving to LinkedIn where the race goeth to the swift.