Are they competitors or collaborators?

For the past year, I've been positioning my eGurus Community using the tag line "from Expert to Authority". Interestingly, the idea of "authority" is also being used by some other people I know:

• For even longer, Maria Carlton has been running the Idea to Author-ity membership site (and a workshop of the same name).
• Matt Church has recently been talking about the need for thought leaders to be authorities.
• Andrew O'Brien, Steve Major and Trevor Dixon are helping professional service firms to become trusted authorities.

With all this focus on the "authority" concept, does this make it a crowded market, with everybody jostling for position and fighting over the same clients?

No! On the contrary. It's an excellent opportunity for collaboration and synergy.
One of the nine core principles I teach relates to developing thought leadership content, so it fits in nicely with Matt's ideas. Another principle is about trust, so it's connected with what Andrew, Steve and Trevor are doing. And another is about publishing content, so it's a good opportunity to work together with Maria.

And I would think the same applies for them in turn: building authority is partly about your on-line presence, which is my area of expertise.

All this interconnectedness means we can all talk about the same broad concept without stepping on each others' toes or fighting over a scarce market. In fact, because our approaches neatly dovetail with each other, it's easy to help each other succeed. For example, Matt and I have interviewed each other for books, I'm a guest presenter on Maria's webinar series in December, I'm asking Maria to contribute to a book, and Andrew will be interviewing me for his radio show.

I wonder whether you have similar opportunities to work together with other people - even those you might have considered to be competitors?