IB-002 - Curate | Question | Learn
Intel of Note
[How to Grow an Audience Through Curating Content]
Building an audience from the ground up can be a very difficult operation, curation is a valuable tool that, when used effectively, can reduce the amount of time and effort involved when growing an audience in the early stages. Curation creates the ability to nurture an audience that values the unique intersection of skills and interests that become evident when one steps back and looks at the interplay and overlap of the concepts being presented. Curated Information should showcase the intersections between one's unique perspective, interests and knowledge. Curation is a labor of love and having a system to efficiently collect and analyze what information is worth presenting to an audience is crucial to quality curation.
If you could curate a collection of 3 items to present to a group of peers that would provide value what would those 3 items be?
[Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting]
Starting from scratch can be daunting. One surefire way to ensure that you are starting on the right path is to ask yourself deeply introspective questions. These questions should help bring clarity and foundation when plans are being formulated. If you don't understand yourself you risk starting something that doesn't resonate with you.
Before starting your next operation ask yourself:
What types of work have you relished working on in the past?
What types of work has irritated in the past?
What are you skilled at?
What are you not skilled at?
[The Learning Loop of Knowledge Work]
Knowledge Work is an "emerging trend" in the career field and is described in an oversimplified manner as someone who is required to "think" for a living as uses their mind to provide value to their organization or the people around them. I know what you're thinking "[REDACTED], practically every job requires you to think for a living to provide value wouldn't that make almost everyone a knowledge worker?" The answer to that question is technically a yes, but that's a topic for another day. Currently, the biggest issue facing the world of knowledge work(and most likely you too) is there is too much information and not enough time to analyze it. This information cannot be ignored, at any given moment in time the information to solve the biggest problem facing you right now is out there and most likely available for free. The problem is that the collection, analysis and application of said vital piece of information is a laborious and time-consuming endeavor. The solution to this issue is to leverage technology to reduce the amount of labor and time involved in the process of finding and internalizing valuable insights from the plethora of information that is available out there.
The Learning Loop is a system (the topic of "systems" will be a recurring topic of these briefings and will be almost as pervasive as the topic of "information") for continuously and consistently collecting, analyzing and disseminating useful information and insights. The system requires a shift from passive consumption of information to intentional consumption. This active consumption is centered around 3 main ideas:
Curating your sources to only serve you high-quality information
Tailor your sources so that they only show you high-quality information relevant to your area of operations or at least provide quick insight into complex topics.
Analyzing the information to extract insights
As previously mentioned vital insight to solve your biggest problem is out there it's just a matter of collecting information and extracting insight from said information. There are two powerful systems that can assist with this step:
Save It For Later - Separating the collection phase from the processing and analysis phases is vital. Upon initial discovery and collection, the information should be lightly scanned to ensure its relevance to your work. Once that is done you can move on to
Progressive Summarization - While this process does include the entire "Learning Loop" we are specifically looking at the process of analyzing a piece of information over time. Instead of analyzing the entire item all at once, break the analysis down into steps. 1 step is completed each time you open the material after the initial collection:
Read the material
Highlight the important passages
Read only the highlighted passages, emphasizing the most important part of the passage by either bolding or underlining the text
Sharing that information and insight with the general public
Sharing your findings and insight with the public is an excellent way to have your knowledge and system tested. The most valuable part of this step is the large amount of feedback you will receive which can be used to improve your knowledge and your system.