How much information do you require before you willingly invest your trust in somebody?

Probably not very much.

As it turns out, our choices seldom have much to do with the actual quantity of facts involved. Most of our daily decisions are made “on a hunch” that we later flesh out with judgements on authenticity, transparency, and a perception of humility.

The social media space is filled with conversations on the need for “authenticity” and “transparency” from corporations and individuals alike. In spite of all the words published about “how to be authentic” or “how to be transparent,” little in the way of concrete guidlines or actionable sequences has emerged.

That’s especially unfortunate because blogs enable intelligent people from all over the globe to gather at no cost to discuss a topic. Why then, when we have the tools to push a conversation forward in real time, do we walk away from so many discussions with our ideas unchallenged and thought structures unchanged? Because we’ve forgotten about humility.

It’s difficult to discuss humility because to do so is often considered arrogant. It’s just not socially acceptable to discuss humility as it relates to people and businesses. Blessedly, we’re allowed to bend the social rules a bit online. I’d like to. Just for a bit. Shall we?

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The internet is not going to die if you feed it less frequently. There’s a lot to be said for developing good writing habits. However, you don’t need to publish everything you write in order to experience the creative benefits of putting your thoughts into writing.

I know that’s blasphemy to many of you blogging pharisees. How could I possibly imagine writing an article for public consumption then be so selfish as to keep it to myself? It’s not so much about keeping things to myself as it is about trying not to waste your time with articles that offer little value.

How do I navigate the brambles and choose which articles to publish and which to send back into the mill? I ask myself these questions:

1. What does this article do?

Does it share a story, ask a question, present a resource, or promote something? Knowing what you want an article to do simplifies editing for clarity while creating a benchmark you can compare response to.

2. What part of this article will be most easily misunderstood?

For every point, there is a counterpoint. For every positive, a negative. I believe we are responsible for the messages others derive from our writing. We can’t cover every base, but we can often address obvious counterpoints to the messages we share. Have you ever run across an author response to feedback that involved the author expressing frustration that the reader didn’t seem to have actually read the article? 9/10ths of the time, the author is mostly to blame for not writing with clarity. Readers are doing you a favor by spending time with your thoughts. Don’t disrespect them with frustrating drivel spun as elegant verbosity. For instance, this entire section could be compressed into: strive for clarity and don’t expect readers to know things you haven’t plainly stated.

3. If I wait to publish this article for a day, or perhaps even a week, will it still be relevant?

Unless you specialize in reblogging or have access to breaking news, is there any reason why you MUST publish articles immediately? I think not. Write for lasting relevance and you’ll end up with a blog you’re not embarrassed about three years from now. A lot of bloggers confused conversation with progression and discussion with contribution. You don’t need to be one of those. If you won’t care about your content a week from now, why should we? Just like a watermelon on a hot day, you get the most refreshment if you put it in the fridge for a few hours before eating. Delicious!

4. Do I give credit where credit is due?

This one is simple. Tell us where you find your inspiration. It doesn’t make you look like less of an expert. In fact, it makes you more trustworthy and seem more intelligent when you give others credit for inspiring your thoughts. Be humble and give credit where it’s due. We’ll respect you more for it and become loyal readers because we trust you not to mess with us. (Please, let me know if you see one of my posts and wonder if I’ve skipped a mention of some inspiration. At worst, you’ve reminded me of something I prefer to do. At best, you’ve shown me another resource that I can add as additional reading. It’s a win both ways!)

5. Did I push myself in some way with this article?

Write for you. I’m serious. If you get caught up in SEO and maximizing some vague niche market, chances are good that you’ll burn out and your writing will suffer. Find different ways to challenge yourself. Try a new format, play around with images or video, or write a post with relevant links to every member of your blog roll. Make a point to write about things that interest you and let us readers do our thing. We’re a fickle bunch and can’t be trusted most of the time anyway!

What questions do you wish more people asked themselves before publishing articles?

Note: Comment moderation is turned on. Once you’ve had a comment approved, you’ll be able to post at will. Please be respectful of others. At the same time, I hope you’ll feel free to challenge ideas and try words on for size. You’re probably smarter than me. Please demonstrate that intelligence in your comments. If we respect each other while refusing to tolerate weak arguments or personal attacks, I think we’ll have a solid chance at making good things happen. Does that sound good? Let me know!

Thank you!

Seth

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“My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know….” – Nassim Taleb

There’s a school of thought online that calls upon individuals to “fake it until you make it” and channel expert sources so that those unfamiliar with the original source will view the sharer as an expert in his or her own right.

For example, let’s say that you had never heard of Seth Godin, read any of his books, his blog, or encountered any of his ideas as attributed to him. If I were to read one of Godin’s books and regurgitate his ideas on this blog (without attribution) as a series on marketing, you’d think me to be quite the sprightly mind!

That very process, shrouded in happy buzzwords, is unfortunately quite common in blogging. Why is it allowed and even endorsed by many of the “thought leaders” in the blogosphere?

For three reasons:

1. Paychecks tend to trump ethics online – The assumption is often that if you’re making a lot of money doing something, you must be doing the right things. (Those who start blogging with the hope of making money through it are often the quickest to subscribe to this ideology.)
2. Fear of rejection is leveraged on multiple levels – When the emperor posts garmentless pics online, the child who speaks out is quickly blocked, unfollowed, and labeled as a troll by members of the emperor’s tribe. (Sorry, Mr. Godin, but lucre-chasers have built incredibly efficient tribes online.)
3. We’re all too busy trying to go viral – In our attempts to “get the word out,” many of the checks and balances that would otherwise apply to our actions are tossed in favor of real-time output. (“I was in a rush” is actually accepted by many people as a valid excuse for failure! “It was done in the 11th hour” is the phrasing you’ll see most often.)

Your initial response to this might be, “Seth, these people are simply discovering ideas and sharing a perspective with willing readers. It’s a necessary part of The Conversation.”

If they gave proper attribution, I’d agree with you. But they don’t give attribution for the very same reason we like to take credit when a friend asks a question and we use Google to find a response: It’s satisfying to be considered a knowledgeable source.

We’ve become so enthralled with the idea of being viewed as sources that we’ve lost sight of what it is to have a conversation. We’re so desperate to be a part of this real time revolution that we forget to properly vet our sources and keep track of where we encounter ideas!

These failures don’t just hurt us personally. They create a culture that supports a network of “experts” intent on building up a following to prevent “negative social proof” (read: red flags) and monetize for personal gain.

Is building a network wrong? No. Is making money by providing customers with a needed product or service wrong? Absolutely not! However, we DO have a problem when individuals take shortcuts that slash at the heart of what makes a system work.

“Scraping” is a term used to describe the practice of stealing content and posting it as one’s own. It’s easy to recognize the such an action is wrong. However, things become more difficult when we look at the practice of idea scraping. That is, when content creators take ideas and channel them into “new” content by simply rewriting concepts.

Obviously, it would be great to have a simple punch list of ways to weed out all the rubbish. I don’t have such a list. What I do have is a suggestion as to how we might go about contributing to The Conversation in the future.

The Knowledge Cycle

Every conversation we have involves a transfer of knowledge. We might be talking about our favorite beverage or the role infrastructure plays in the future of the electric car. No matter the topic, we’re constantly exchanging knowledge that reveals hints about how that knowledge was gained.

You’re probably familiar with the type of knowledge that gives absolutely no hint as to where it came from. It often pops up in conversations with the prefix, “Well, you know they say…” to which the common response is, “WHO says?”

At this point, the knowledge provider typically withdraws from that part of the conversation or attempts to substantiate the remark with another source. That bit of knowledge, without attribution, is deemed worthless and thrown from the conversation.

Why then, when we encounter online versions of that same vague phrase, do we neglect to ask, “Who says?” Is it because the knowledge provider makes a lot of money or is very popular? Do we fail to ask because we are too busy with our own projects?

I believe we fail because our focus has shifted away from the knowledge we share in our conversations. We’re under so much pressure to participate in The Conversation that we lose sight of the knowledge cycle that provides content for us to discuss!

Here’s a simple illustration of a knowledge cycle:

The complete cycle isn’t entirely unfriendly to real time discussions. But it is complex enough that few individuals are capable of navigating it within the confines of our mutilated attention spans.

Instead of figuring out how to filter, moderate, and otherwise make sense of our conversations online, we typically resort to engaging through a truncated knowledge cycle as illustrated here:

By neglecting (what I consider to be) some of the most important parts of the knowledge cycle, we speed up our conversations. But at what cost? A quick jaunt through the blog roll of a typical social media blogger reveals a festering magma of inbred ideas. As attempts at conversation move farther from the source, ideas break down and thoughts crumble into feeble blurbs hoping for comments.

The fix? Support the authors who create content that reflects a full knowledge cycle.

If you read an article written by an author with full-cycle experience in the topic at hand, you’ll often note (if you pay attention) portions of the article that point back to the cycle. The author who is truly interested in contributing to The Conversation and not just channeling it to create an air of expertise will include most of the following:

• References to topic inspiration – Even the phrase “I’ve been stewing over this for quite some time” gives the reader an idea of where the author is coming up with things. (Referencing an idea source is often done when it can serve doubly as a bit of name dropping. ex: I was chatting with Barack Obama over breakfast yesterday…)
• Research attribution – If an author spent time researching a topic (even if that research is entirely experiential) you’ll see acknowledgement of those sources. It takes only a few seconds to link to sources or include a list of resources at the bottom of an article. You, dear reader, need not accept laziness (or 11th hour changes) as an excuse for missing attribution.
• Place in a big picture – Tertiary discussions of a topic typically fixate on where things fit into a big picture or where a specific part of the original discussion needs fleshing out. If you’re dealing with a source, it’s likely that you’ll see a bit of both in the article.
• Action steps – Check for action steps as to how the knowledge might be put into action. If the article is of an evaluative nature, the action steps might be suggested revisions to previous steps. If the author is pulling ideas out of thin air, the readers deserve to know. There’s nothing wrong with brainstorming. Just admit to your readers when brainstorming is the only thing taking place.
• Analysis – This is the part where personal perspective and experience really comes into play. A source article will have an intangible feeling of continuity that comes from a single voice expressing a cohesive thought. Scraped concepts will often seem disjointed to the careful reader and lack additional references and links to full cycle concepts.

With a bit of thoughtful consideration on your part, most shortcutting thought-scrapers will quickly reveal themselves.

What’s the point of all this? Simply that we don’t need to build “Questions to ask your [insert field here] expert to make sure you have a real expert” surveys in order to determine who among us is an expert. Surveys can be learned, tests gamed, and people guilt-tripped into giving recommendations they would otherwise avoid.

One of the beautifully transformative aspects of internet culture is its willingness to accept people on the strength of their ideas. Let’s keep that alive and make it thrive by accepting that we are seldom the source. To be an expert is to relinquish one’s fascination with learning and what is the point of a worldwide conversation if we cannot learn from each other?

When he said,

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

I think Robert Browning meant to encourage us to dream big and put all our efforts into the moment we have right now. I don’t think he meant that we should pretend to be something we’re not in the hope of a reward.

I think I’ll do best if I focus on what I truly grasp, admit when I’m unsure, and let you determine the reach of my thoughts. I’m content to let heaven worry about itself.

What about you?

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RT @sethsimonds Fake Experts, Broken Blogging, and a Real Solution

Photo credit: assbach

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Resources & Further Reading:

“You can call me a lot of things but please, don’t call me an expert.” – Edward Boches
“The Professional Learning Cycle” – University of Tasmania
“Business Knowledge Life Cycle” – Drools
“Libraries Stuck in the Middle: Reactive vs. Proactive Responses to the Science Journal Crisis” – ISTL

One of the main arguments for reciprocal following on Twitter is that you gain the ability to send direct messages between accounts without (usually) having the message show up in public timelines. Here are five reasons Twitter Direct Messages are actually quite  useless:

1. They’re not threaded – They’re quick-blast friendly…not conversation-builders.
2. They’re not searchable – That DM you sent to whoozy 3 weeks ago? Start scrolling and hoping.
3. They’re not secure – People with 3rd party apps mess up and send DM’s as @ replies regularly. Many users also treat DM’s with a lower sense of privacy than they would emails. DM’s are cut-and-pasted regularly. Ask your honest friends and at least a few will back me on this. To those who argue that DM’s must be secure because banks on Twitter ask users to send account information in DM’s? A bank participating in something does not legitimize or secure the process. It’s a bad idea to send confidential information via DM’s.
4. They’re not archivable – If I delete something from my inbox, it disappears from your sent folder. The same goes for deleting from my sent folder and the message disappearing from your inbox.
5. They’re the same length as tweets – There was a time when DM’s were a bit longer than normal tweets. No more! There’s simply no real advantage to using DM’s for regular communication.

The question remains, “What are Direct Messages good for on Twitter?” Here, just for you, are five things direct  messages are quite useful for:

1. Sexually harassing other users – Ask your friends, especially the good-looking ones and confirm this if you don’t believe me. Direct messages allow people (not saying this is a good thing) to say things they’d be severely chastised for in their public stream.
2. Requesting that other users pimp your projects – spam much?
3. Telling users that their link is bad, spelling’s wrong, and other such mildly helpful criticisms.
4. Allowing celebrities to reply to individuals while prohibiting the recipient from taking any joy in the interaction beyond joyously sharing the message with household pets and fellow stalkers.
5. Sending your email address, skype name, or other other contact information so the recipient can connect with you in a value-added way.

So the next time you hear a social media expert telling you to follow everybody back because it’s important that people be able to send you direct messages, give pause. There’s a good chance they’re just jerking your chain as they go about trying to boost their follower counts.

If you have a twitter account, what do you primarily use direct messages for?

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photo: cgsorg

What’s a blogger supposed to do when a published post contains an error or gross misstatement? When a mistake is made and facts are overlooked or opinions run wild, it’s time for an update.

Early yesterday, Perez Hilton responded to rumors about Michael Jackson’s hospitalization with the following post to his blog:

Thanks to Jim D for the screen capture. Perez confirmed the authenticity of the image in his @reply to Pete Wentz:

Bloggers are known for their ability to rapidly churn out content and Perez is no different. In the dog-eat-dog world of celebrity and entertainment blogging, timing is everything and current content trumps factual and witty prose. Perez posted about Michael Jackson as soon as he heard rumors of the star’s hospitalization. In typical cutting fashion, he then made remarks that seemed suitable at the time.

When it turned out that Jackson wasn’t faking sickness and had actually died, the situation seemed very different. Now the post mocking Jackson for previous publicity stunts seemed in very poor taste.

What did Perez do? He deleted the post and published new content meekly remarking on Jackson’s hospitalization and death. I think deleting the post was a mistake.

By removing his original post, Perez missed out on a golden opportunity to use the power of the update to send a strong message to his readers. With an update he could have explained the hasty nature of his first post and reminded readers that his remarks weren’t out of hand in light of the available information. An update lets readers know that the author doesn’t always get everything right the first time. An update lets readers know that sometimes circumstances change and content needs to be altered to reflect those changes.

As Perez Hilton is discovering, once disclosed, content rarely goes away. It’s best to leave posts up once published and update as new information comes along. Readers appreciate it and appreciative readers make the blogging world turn. Treasure them.

What do you think? Would you prefer a blogger delete a post or simply update it with new information and explanations as needed?

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Chris Anderson, the Editor-in-Chief of Wired has a new book coming out on July 7th called Free: The Future of a Radical Price. With a fascinating glimpse into Anderson’s copy-and-paste-without-attribution writing technique, Waldo Jaquith writes in The Virginia Quarterly Review [online]:

In the course of reading Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion, $26.99), for a review in an upcoming issue of VQR, we have discovered almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources.

Jaquith then offers a comparison between text taken from Wikipedia and the final print version of Anderson’s book:

[Jaquith's complete article including extended examples of Anderson plagiarizing]

Anderson took a last-minute 5th grade approach to writing. He found the Wikipedia listing for “Usury” and pasted the text into his manuscript. His reply to Jaquith’s accusation is flaccid at best:

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