Hah.. yeah.. I like to remain anonymous, so it's difficult to discuss my own background and experience directly, but I fully get what you mean.

I've stood in front of conferences at places like AIChE and in front of the upper-staff at some of the world's largest companies and delivered talks on topics that I consider to be the basics of this field, and there seemed to be surprisingly superficial comprehension. It was weird, and communication seemed like a huge barrier.

A lot of work in this field may be more social in getting folks to accept and support stuff.