Lifting the Curse of Knowledge
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“blah, blah, blah” attributed to Keith at a recent Cre8buzz meeting
We at the ‘Buzz are thrilled to be joined daily by a passionate group of interesting, serious and authentic people who really appreciate the place that we’ve created. We get comments about how nice it is to interact with fellow bloggers and others and build real relationships. We agree. We’ve made some real friends and continue to make more.
What’s interesting is how difficult it is to explain to others. At our worst, we can come up with things like:
“It’s our responsibility to synergistically disseminate multimedia based intellectual capital to meet our customer’s needs.”
Yuck.
Note: We’ve never used anything so bad. I actually created this on Dilbert’s Mission Statement Generator, which is great fun.
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Sometimes, the best thing you can do is admit that you know too much. We’ve adopted the term “The Curse of Knowledge” from Chip and Dan Heath from their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Here’s how they describe the curse in an interviewed by Guy Kawasaki:
“And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.
Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.” Experts just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of stickiness.
JFK dodged the Curse. If he’d been a modern-day politician or CEO, he’d probably have said, “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry, using our capacity for technological innovation to build a bridge towards humanity’s future.” That might have set a moon walk back fifteen years.”
Our curse of knowledge within Cre8buzz is to explain to the layperson what we are about. It’s easy to compare ourselves to other social networks. It’s also easy to explain to bloggers and technical folks. How do we explain it to someone who’s never blogged or never used Facebook or MySpace?
I know that I have helped a couple people, with little to no social networking or blogging experience, build a profile. I guess it seems a bit intimidating to build a profile and perhaps a bit scary to share something about yourself to the world. But, you know what? Once they are on, they’ve been embraced by the community, start to meet new people, post more stuff and pretty soon, they love it.
Ok, so how do I describe this thing called Cre8buzz to ANYONE? Not just bloggers or folks that are technically proficient? Here’s a start:
Cre8buzz is a place on the web where people with particular passions go to share their creations and make new friends. When someone creates something that others see and like, it get’s recognized and highlighted for all to see. In other words, if you put up good stuff, you will get applauded.
So, ok, not great, but a start. Help me out here. Any suggestions?
Keith
Comments
I hear you loud and clear on that “too much knowledge thing” — luckily, half my career has been spent “dumbing things down” to the lowest common denominator. The key of course is to dumb it down enough to pique the interest of the masses while not being so simplistic as to alienate what we call your “super-users” — those who have the passion AND expertise to take advantage of the full array of features and functions available to them to create your ideal user scenario (in your case, an awesome page with unique blog posts, lots of pictures, custom background, lots of comments, lots of friends and of course plenty of “buzz”).
If I sat down and thought it out, I could probably come up with a better answer, but shooting from the hip, I’d say Cre8buzz is:
A community on the web where people set up “homestead” pages within sub-areas that match their interests. Within their homesteads, members showcase their creative talents in the form of blogs, videos, pictures, etc., all while building mutually supportive relationships with other folks who share similar passions. As interaction increases, these relationships naturally transcend the borders of this community to create awareness and buzz in the “real world.”
Something like that…
Comment from BusyDad on December 5, 2007, 8:12 pm
I use the word “hub.” Cre8buzz is my hub. I stay connected, flow, and funtion throughout the blogosphere starting here. The ‘Buzz is my center.
My profile is my homestead, no doubt. I like what BD said.
This post is awesome! You are a great blogger.
Comment from Piper of Love on December 5, 2007, 10:37 pm
I simply regard Cre8Buzz as my own personal “Sea of Creativity”. So many creations here, by different people, by all walks of life, all ages, genders, etc… It’s like we’re all fish, with our own unique scales and markings, sharing what we are made of with other fishies!!
Comment from Secret Agent Mama on December 6, 2007, 10:57 am
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