That's when my journalist cap turned into my practitioner cap. It immediately struck me that I was familiar with those "obvious points" because I walk in the shoes of those in the industry. I am not merely a customer of retirement plan investing; I spend my waking hours incessantly trying to make things better for customers of retirement plan investing. That specific sleeves-rolled-up experience gives practitioner-journalists a leg up compared to just plain journalists.

The media world has become increasingly populated with practitioner-journalists. One of the first – Roger Wohlner – is the subject of this month's FiduciaryNews.com Exclusive Interview (see, "Exclusive Interview with Roger Wohlner: On Annuities, Target Date Funds and the Fiduciary Standard," FiduciaryNews.com, Oct. 22, 2013). If you've been a regular reader of Roger – or at least catch a glimpse of him in the interview – you'll see his plain-spoken straight-from-the-heart approach is not only refreshing, but instructive. Here's someone who not only makes retirement plan decisions for himself, he also invests the time to learn how best to help others make retirement plan decisions. If you have to help others with retirement plan decisions, doesn't it make sense to see what your peers are thinking and doing?

With the ease of online publishing and the prominence of social media, it only makes sense that we're seeing more and more full-time practitioners become part-time journalists. Now, trained journalists will take issue with granting them the title "journalist." They'll say, "What do these folks know about journalism?" That's a legitimate question. It's just as legitimate as the questions practitioners ask of journalists, namely, "What do you know of practicing?"

That's a fight for another day (and perhaps a late-night cable TV show). Suffice it to say, the bottom-line is this: sharing relevant information. There may be concerns about writing ability and conflicts-of-interest regarding the selling of products. The first can be overcome with practice. The latter, though, is irrelevant in the case of fiduciaries (who, by definition, cannot sell products to their clients). Once these to hurdles are met, we're left with, again, simply sharing relevant information.

If you think about it, this is the concept of a peer-reviewed pure science community. Before nations and corporations developed a need to maintain secrecy, scientists roamed in a very open way. They would readily write of their current research and share it with their fellow scientists. They were interested in only one thing – discovering the greater truth. And, with each generation we came closer to that truth. It's the classic case of the advantage of brainstorming. In other words, throw enough chattering scientists into a room and, sooner or later, one of them will have an intuitive leap. And that intuitive leap will lead to another intuitive leap. And so on and so forth.

Now, imagine we put the best and brightest retirement plan practitioners into one room. Eventually, like the scientists, someone will have an intuitive leap. Maybe several. And maybe they'll contradict each other. The beauty of practitioners, as opposed to scientists, is it's easier for a practitioner to go solo into the marketplace and test their personal favorite intuitive leap. It is this competition of intuitive leaps that will lead to more effective retirement planning. That's better for both the service providers and their clients.

There's a reason why so many movies feature plot lines about screenwriting, movie-making and acting. The creative minds behind movies live these themes every day. This proximity to the subject matter makes it easier to develop convincing stories. It's the same reason why many novels and short-stories contain some hint of autobiography in them.

Likewise, community-specific crowdsourcing will not only lead to better, more insightful and more credible stories, it will produce better solutions.