The old adage is true. If you don't ask for something, then you probably won't get it.
I'm intensely interested in this community's thoughts on something brewing in the Value of Simple (VoS) labs.
So interested in fact, that I believe it's worth my time to write the first “Ask the Community” article here. And I believe it's worth your time to share your wonderful and unique views on a very special topic.
As an added incentive, you and your comments could be included as a case study or words of wisdom in what I'm hoping to create.
And if your feedback is stellar, I'll pick among the best commenters to feature in an upcoming post.
I won't waste your time making the intrigue build. Here's what's on my mind so you can tell me what's on yours.
Wait. Is That…Is That a…?
Some people told me they were most excited about my sensory deprivation tank experience (recap coming soon), more of the Smart and Simple Matters show, or next month's 120 hour Continuous Creation Challenge from last week's July 2012 Pulse Check.
But I was most excited (and mildly terrified) about the first VoS product. It's coming sometime in November and – if I validate that people need it – this amazing idea will eagerly escape from my brain and spread into the world.
I've already spoken with a few folks about all sorts of stuff related to this really big idea. Stuff like:
- Some huge problems most of us have that I can solve
- The benefits to solving these problems
- Obstacles in getting people to understand the problems and solutions, getting it on the market, and having people willing to buy it
- Best practices and what shape it takes
- Who my target communities are (besides this one obviously)
But I need your guidance the most to validate whether it's viable and desirable.
So here are two questions I'd love your insight on. Pick one (or both if you'd like a challenge) and please answer it in the comments.
1. What's Most Frustrating About Creating Value from Information You've Consumed (e.g. Books, Videos, Recipes, Blog Posts, etc.)?
or
2. What Do You Think of When You Hear the Words “Curating” or “Curation?”
Note: It's cool to stop reading right now and go directly to the comments section to answer. If you don't usually comment, this is the time to make your voice heard. It's tremendously helpful, even if it's just a couple of sentences.
Why I'm Doing This
Ask the Community benefits everyone in major ways. These are just a few.
- It helps me understand what brings you pain, stress, worry, joy, confidence, and happiness (which I then use to create something to decrease the bad stuff and increase the good stuff)
- It gives this community a chance to directly share insight and experience into an important topic. That leads to us helping each other out and knowing how far along we are on the path we want to travel.
- Your comments point me in the direction of the types of articles I need to write, the kind of people I need to interview, the experiments I want to conduct, the freebies I want to give away, the products or services I'm passionate about, and the case studies to feature.
I'll be doing these Ask the Community articles periodically because I believe in the power of your personal and collective wisdom. To me, each of you can be a Simple Sage, Simple Hero, Community Connector, and Triumphant Troubleshooter.
So today it's your turn to shine. You get to be the one adding value to all our lives.
Once again, here are the two questions:
1. What's Most Frustrating About Creating Value from Information You've Consumed (e.g. Books, Videos, Recipes, Blog Posts, etc.)?
or
2. What Do You Think of When You Hear the Words “Curating” or “Curation?”
Maria Popova has already answered the second question when she says:
Curating is the…drive to find the interesting, meaningful, and relevant amidst the vast maze of overabundant information, creating a framework for what matters in the world and why — (and) is an increasingly valuable form of creative and intellectual labor.
Here's my answer to the second question to keep the ball rolling.
Curation is the act of intentionally sifting through everything you consume, categorizing and archiving the best stuff, and then making it accessible and sharable for your future benefit and the use of others.”
The System Changes Everything
We all curate whether we know it or not. It could be categorizing your best books, a specific way of organizing your website bookmarks, archiving information in an app like Evernote, or sharing recipes on Pinterest.
I've observed that most people do it inefficiently, haphazardly, and don't know about the best practices for making it useful.
This problem shouldn't exist and is a major source of pain and frustration for so many people. And even worse, most folks don't even know they have a problem.
I love this topic, but any solutions I could provide are only as good as the guidance you give me.
So help me learn from you!
Now It's Your Turn
Please share your insight in the comments on one of the questions above – or both questions if you're feeling frisky.
If you enjoy and benefit from this community, take an active role in helping to shape it.
I'm super stoked to read your thoughts and potentially feature some in an upcoming product or future article!
—
I get most of my content online these days, for the simple reason that I can find the answers most easily there. Books are way, way deeper, and extremely valuable, but you have to a)have them easily at hand and b) have a way to navigate through them easily. I don’t like to highlight or underline in my books because who can say for sure that the sections I underline will be of enduring importance (and it makes the other content hard to pay attention to)?
Perhaps an e-reader would help with that; perhaps not. There’s something about looking at a row of books on a shelf and thinking “Oh, I think there’s a passage in that book that might be useful” whereas in an e-reader the best books might get lost in the clutter.
I value curated content because it breaks me out of my silo of familiarity. It enables me to tap into other people’s networks of information.
I never thought about the downside of highlighting or underlining a (currently) relevant section on a piece of paper. You’re right. What if it’s no longer relevant and how much does it distract from the rest of the content on the page? These are good questions that help me think.
You hit on one of the biggest benefits of curating Shanna. There’s a ton of people who are awesome at filtering the crap and showing off the best stuff. When we find these people we tend to latch on to them because they not only save us time, but add value to our lives that we can’t easily replace.
Yeah. I don’t want to BE one of those people; I just want to KNOW them. But something you mentioned in your conversations made me think more about how I can make my own content accessible to those Connectors.
You sort of already know my thoughts on some of this, but I’m happy to re-answer!
Question 1: I’m decent at keeping track of passages in books, blog posts, that sort of thing. I’m not so good with take-aways from podcasts, audiobooks, videos, etc (non-written info sources). With the notes I do take, I’m usually ok getting them out of the printed source and into a notes file (or just bookmarking the blog post, in that case), but I rarely do anything with the information, including look back at it.
Question 2: First thought: a quiet, orderly, air-conditioned back room in a museum somewhere. Second thought: a library. Third thought: Joel and his spreadsheet. Fourth thought: building Etsy treasuries (collections of related items that site members can create, showcases of sorts), a process I’ve just learned they refer to as “curation.”
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Erin. Too bad everyone else didn’t get the benefit of hearing your incredibly clear and eloquent views during our conversation a few days ago. 🙂
That’s cool that Etsy has a “Treasury” of member curated shopping galleries. I had no idea.
P.S. My goal is to have my spreadsheets be the first thing you think about when you hear the words curating and curation.
To answer question #1 – what’s most frustrating is vague information. Some books/articles I read are beautifully written, and *feel* motivating, but aren’t clear about how I should use the information. And to me, any non-fiction, personal development type book should be clear about how to use the information. And books that get too psychological are almost useless to me. I don’t want to be psycho-analyzed.. I want clear solutions. If it’s a blog post, it’s a good idea to offer just one action step/ solution per article that can be put into practice immediately.
and #2 – curate is a word I never use, lol. But, based on the definition… I’m actually really good at organizing info. Even with the abundance of info on the web, I have things very well organized in bookmarks and folders, sometimes I print articles out and file it, and I don’t read non-fiction without a highlighter (a real highlighter or the e-reader highlighter thingy) 🙂
Uh oh. You and Shanna are at odds about the usefulness of a highlighter. I trust this difference of opinion is something that can be reconciled. 🙂
If you have a moment Denise, can you tell us (or just me in an email if you prefer) what kind of “things” you have well organized? Bonus points if you describe at a high level what your system looks like beyond bookmarks and folders.
And last…don’t you think it’s our job to take a non-fiction or personal development resource and synthesize how we should use the information? I’m all for someone suggesting that I should do X about Y, but I really like coming to my own conclusions of what to do with new information.
mmmm. @Joel Why should those two different styles *need* to be reconciled? (or were you speaking tongue-in-cheek?)
Hi Karen,
That was a joke among friends. It deserved a smiley face to indicate to others that I was joking. Consider the smiley face added. 🙂
Thank you, Joel!
I’m de-compressing from vacation in a sub-culture where it took a long time for some folk to get that some issues are simply a difference of opinion, and no ‘reconciliation’ is either needed or even possible! Glad to know this isn’t one of those places. 😉
I’ll just answer the first question. For me, I just have a hard time remembering and implementing the information I’ve read. If I’m really interested in something, I need to have it in front of my eyes for a long time and practice it frequently. For example, I get a weekly inspirational quote from Pema Chodron. Last week, I very much liked her suggestion about compassionate abiding so I left it in my email box and returned to it frequently, practicing the meditation when I read the piece again.
I’d like to be able to just take in information and ideas more easily so they’ll stick!
Hey Bobbi,
Remembering and implementing information are two related, but yet, very different beasts. Some of my systems support just remembering that I possess information of some kind but not needing to know what it is, where I found it, or when I last accessed it.
I’m confident curating in a specific way can radically increase the stickiness of information. Sounds like you’ll be interested in hearing more about this as I make it available. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the good example of the weekly inspirational quote.
I’ve stopped stressing about “making use” of everything I read because there’s so much and a lot of it is not directly applicable. The stuff I need, sticks, and I particularly enjoy going back to something and ending up with a different takeaway than the first time I read it.
When I read your question though, “recipes” jumped out at me. I am semi-decent at following recipes but a lot of the ones I end up skipping are ones that have language that I don’t understand. Or they sneak a step in the ingredient list that involves some special preparation style and I have no idea what the heck they’re talking about…. so I guess sometimes barriers in terms of being at a different level than the target audience of the piece? Or I just can’t cook.
As for content curation, I think your definition works perfectly for me. Organizing the content you read in some fashion in order to be able to share it with others…
Sarah,
You’re going to have to teach Bobbi how to instantly make the information you need stick. She struggles with that just like I do (and a whole host of other folks).
By the way, consider your grammatical item fixed. I’ve clicked submit on something too and then realized, “Poop. It’s “too” damn it, not “to!” Or “they’re” vs. “their.” Stupid English language…
Hey Joel, great question. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
I think the most frustrating part is that there’s SO much great info out there, it’s hard to know what to implement. The second you find an amazing blog post that you want to try using, there’s another one blaring at you that might be better.
So I actually agree with Bobbi – I often forget those great bits of info, and thus, don’t implement many.
Roger that Kaylee. Curating is about finding the best in what already exists and not necessarily needing something new. I love this quote from this really short Vimeo video. “Just because something is new and it floats to the top, don’t make it better or more relevant than something that came before it.” I’d suggest you check it out as it might help.
http://vimeo.com/38524181
1. What’s Most Frustrating About Creating Value from Information You’ve Consumed (e.g. Books, Videos, Recipes, Blog Posts, etc.)?
– I am thinking I don’t really understand this question. to me the writer would be creating the value and I would be taking the action. So if the question is “what’s most frustrating implementing based on what I’ve consumed?” Then my answer would be as Denise said – find actionable steps or tasks. There have been things I have read where I say to myself, “get a notebook and create a action plan based on this” but it never seems to get done.
Which leads me to try my hardest(getting better all the time) at always giving my readers something foundational and solid to do. At least they know where to start then.
2. What Do You Think of When You Hear the Words “Curating” or “Curation?”
I actually love this word and I am starting to use it more in general and to describe what I do. Let’s face it there are not many topics around these days that we can be truly original with. Sure we can add our spin and personality to it, which is great, but a topic that has never come up in history before, not much change of that.
I definitely agree we are already curators whether it is just in our own lives, filter incoming data or as a teacher/mentor/writing filtering for others.
great questions… exciting to hear what you are planning!
Lori,
What are the obstacles preventing you from taking action on what you read? Is a notebook your primary way of recapping the essence of it and then determining what (if anything) you should do about it?
I’m glad you like the topic of curating. It’s easiest for me to help people who are already interested in it and have some background in the concepts. But what I have in mind is going to be even more helpful for people who have no idea what the word means or why curation would be worth their time.
Thanks for the great response!
I”m with Bobbi and Kaylee. The most frustrating part is not necessarily creating value from these products, but creating a system where I can find and reference the material I found valuable. Part of the problem is overload of information, but a bigger part is knowing what to do with the information I do want to keep.
I like the idea of curating the content that I find useful, which to me means compiling it and sharing it with others who will also enjoy it.
Sounds like you’re brewing an interesting product, Joel. Can’t wait to learn more!
Hi Sarah,
It’s good to start picking up on some themes. I always hope for a variety of opinions, but it’s nice to see a little consistency on this one.
Thanks for letting loose with some of your thoughts.
First let me say that you’ve really opened my mind up to what curating even is. Whenever I heard the word “curation”, I thought of a museum curator picking out artwork. But now I can see how useful this skill is. Thanks for connecting the dots!
Question 1: While I’m reading, I always come across these nuggets of information/wisdom and I either don’t write them down or I write them down in a way that isn’t effective (ie they get lost, disorganized, etc). It would be great if I could get my notes organized in a way that they are both easy to input AND access for later.
Question 2: I suppose I answered that in the preamble. The word definitely brings up mental images of white walls, bright spotlights and people wearing velvet gloves (think: Art museum). But I also really like that it further defines an information skill. The word “organization” is over-used and has lost it’s meaning. So what I’m getting from this is that I need to become a better curator of information.. not necessarily more organized.
I give you my sincerest assurances there will be no velvet gloves around anything I do. 🙂
I like that you picked up on the difference between curation and organization. Granted, organization is a part of being able to curate, but the two can be mistaken as synonymous. I’m huge on being organized but I’m equally huge on being curatized (I think I just made up a word there).
Thanks for your thoughts Ethan. I’ll make sure the 3rd episode of the Smart and Simple Matters show this coming Monday gets curated in a special way.
I don’t think my answer will help you… but here goes:
I think most information, in general, sucks. We’re biologically hardwired to produce and consume interesting information, not accurate information (cognitive biases create ‘shortcut’ thinking, sexual selection treats information production as a fitness display). Think about the allure of religion, vs. the abuse and unsexiness of science.
So, there are three sources that I rely upon:
blogs, books, and research papers. Blogs are good for discovering ideas and exploring anecdotes. As vehicles of science they suck – for every blog post supporting idea x, there are blog posts supporting the opposite idea y. By definition blogs are anecdote engines. So I have no problem creating value from blogs, because all I want from them are ideas I can research further.
Books are great. Also often unreliable (there are dozens of books against global warming, for example). The problem is that we assume we are capable of discerning the accuracy of a book as we read it, but this is generally untrue. If the book is well-written, interesting, and builds upon our existing beliefs, we can be made to believe things which are untrue. After all, are global warming skeptics stupid? No, they just read from different sources.
So the only real source of information with value for a product creator, in my opinion, are research papers. Yes, there is also experience, but I trust science over experience (I also have very little experience 🙂 ). The problem with research papers is that they’re generally boring, sometimes hard to understand (multi-modal alpha distribution? what!?), very specific, and also sometime inaccurate. I can’t remember the study, but something like 30-60% of the research papers written forty years have been overturned by recent research. There’s no reason to think that won’t happen again for the current batch of papers.
I’m coming out with my first paid product in January. I want it to be more useful. For that, it needs to be more accurate than existing products. That’s hard!
Hi Amit,
Although your response wasn’t exactly what I’m looking for, you always introduce ideas in a fresh way. I agree that a lot of information created is of poor value or misleading. And that what constitutes “information” is far too subjective these days. You do limit yourself heavily when the only thing you trust is a research paper or scientifically based content. But it sounds like you’re cool with that (which is cool with me).
You do know that the Scientific Method is broken though, right?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all
Hi Joel,
You’re right – which is really unfortunate (that was a great read, thanks for the link!).
Over the past year I’ve read over a dozen books documenting the phenomena that article describes – more generally, the reality that cognitive biases undermine the accuracy of ‘factual’ science and ‘objective’ decision making.
But because I believe science is the only source of accurate knowledge, my hope is that science will gradually improve itself.
On a personal level though, I don’t see many options but to close my eyes – positive psychology has grown in popularity so quickly because it has proven so much of old psychology and psychiatry science to be broken. But what’s to say positive psychology isn’t full of shit either? *sigh*, the world is tough 🙂
Hi Joel,
Information overload and sluggish implementing of execution are two things that I experience. Your blog had inspired me to be way more proactive in the way that I consume and effectively metabolize ideas and info that I find interesting or worthy.
To answer your first question a bit more directly – what frustrates me most is how to get from reading inspiring words in cyberspace that I know I can gain something valuable from, and make that translate to actually making tangible, concrete decisions and changes that I want to see.
Hi Frank,
I’ve never heard the words “metabolize ideas” but I like the visual they conjure up in my head. So you’re becoming more proactive in the way you consume but you’re still not gaining the full benefit from it. Is it because the inspiring words aren’t also giving you an action plan to follow or is it because you’re having trouble synthesizing the key takeaways into goals or behavior change? It could be none of the above of course but I’d like to hear more.
I agree with Frank, too, about the difficulty of ‘translating Inspiration into Action Steps’. If I’ve already got tools that I can *use* to do the thing, sometimes Inspiration is really all I need to see how to put them together and figure out where to start. But, if a writing introduces something I’ve never encountered before (like a shortcut, a combination or an interpretation), or goes into to much detail before I’ve gotten the gist of it, it’s “Hello Overload!” here too!
I agree with Frank my biggest frustration is information overload. there is so much I want to consume but have to limit myself to actually reap value from it. I use Evernote to take notes from any information – easily searchable at a later date if you want to retrieve the information stored
Hey Ciara,
Information overload can be a huge weight that impacts so many other facets of your life. And the more we go digital, the easier it is to consume more and the more tempting it gets (because it’s so easy). I’ve heard a lot of people say they use Evernote or Springpad for curating-like activity. I’m going to have to explore it a bit further because I’ve never used them for that purpose.
Thanks for commenting!
I think that this is just a carryover habit from college. As a student in history, the reading and synthesizing IS the doing. Once i would extract the relevant info in an abstract way and then curate and summarize the situation, the job would be done and i would obviously never apply anything to myself or my habits or behavior. I never actually made this connection before.
Wow. This is kind of huge for me.
1)If it isn’t in Evernote with appropriate tags or in Bolt, it is hard to combine the information culled from other sources into one subset of ideas under the main topic that I’m searching for.
2) I think of all of the services of used to curate all of my information. The best I have found so far is Bolt and Evernote. I’ve used Evernote since it first appeared and have a wealth of info in their and tagged. But I need something beyond Google Docs or Scrivener where I can have everything at my fingertips.
Why is it that I feel this is a lead up to your spreadsheet articles? Now I’m definitely interested in your courses. You’re a sly fox.