[Behind the Scenes] Delivering quality content

A few hours ago, @mobbs of #steemstem fame wrote a behind the scenes post on how he approaches finding and creating his content. He rightly mentioned that many people tend to write for writings sake or, reward itself and passion on a subject is missing.

People want eyes on their work and engagement, right?

Passion is a very important component as it shines through and adds authenticity to a presentation and, these are presentations. If you are looking for reward and recognition, people need to feel that you care about what you are doing. This is why the recommendation is to write what you know but, this doesn't mean stay with what you know.

I would go out on a limb here and say that I am among one of the more prolific authors on Steem who is able to write across a range of topics and still maintain a relatively high level of quality. It is not research material with sources and studies usually but, it also isn't unresearched as my professional life exposes me to experts across many fields. This grants me some topic benefits but, I am a person who likes to think through what I write. I am not presenting a topic, I am presenting my thoughts on a topic, it is always personal. As said, authenticity is important.

But, lets get into some ideas that might help people create content, regardless of the type of content one wants to create.

Content itself

As said, I am exposed to experts and a diverse range of fields across business, science, medical, military, manufacturing, engineering and technology but, that is not where I usually draw upon as it is not where I am most passionate. What I enjoy is, society, community, well-being, future and how we can improve our world. The conversations I have provide the seeds that allow me to start thinking and developing thoughts along the lines I have interesting.

I am also a curious type of cat who doesn't spend time consuming entertainment. What I mean is, no TV, no Youtube, no gaming etc. When I say 'no' I mean, severely restricted in comparison to the norms. In the past I found that the more I consumed, the less creative I became. My mind slowed down incredibly. As they say, you are what you eat and I try to now feed my mind on information that energizes and encourages deeper thought than fast food.

I listen to a range of podcasts while driving to and from clients, I follow people who inspire thought, not entertain me, I spend time discussing much more than just the topic at hand with clients. What I am essentially doing is building an informational network across fields that allows me to observe an anomaly in one area and then see if it appears or is emerging in another. Trends. Real trends, not Trending.

Finding out what interests you and really exploring all of the facets to it is a vital part of personal development in my opinion. For example, when I found Steem, I came to post what I like but soon found that the microcosm here is one of the most interesting (and easily observable) systems I have found. It has it all, if you are willing to get a little dirty.

A fashionable post

I don't worry too much about what people like or don't I do what I do and hope it connects with the audience. However, wishing isn't really enough is it? I teach (and often automatically follow) a process that attempts to engage users by appealing to the parts that are interesting to them. This is much easier to do than people think if you follow a very basic idea that generally, everyone needs four basic parts to consider something well.

Why | What | How | What if

Why: is the reason this information is important to consider, why anyone need know it at all and the hook for them to read/listen any further. Without a why, the rest is hard to engage with.

What: are the details of the topic. The nitty-gritty that informs people what something actually is, what is it made of, what is its structure.

How: is the process of the topic, how does it work, how does it interact, how does it effect its environment or, how does the environment effect it.

What if: is the application of the information. Where does it lead, how could it be used to benefit the audience.

This process could cover an entire topic and be repeated for each individual sub topic. Most people tend to have their interest areas in one or two of these stages and it is very easy for a knowledgeable person to focus only on the parts they are interested in as the other parts are seen as obvious. This will however exclude most people from the conversation, especially if they don't know why they are listening at all.

If you know your audience is filled with experts before hand, some parts can be cut down but, when throwing something out into the void and crowd, cutting corners will result in a much narrower engagement pool. A major benefit of having some kind of form process to follow is to keep a logical order. Having said that, I break many of these processes daily but, there is more method than madness to my approach.

The work behind

People are often looking to maximize their lives and get maximum gain for minimum effort. This has resulted in short-form content that broaches topics but actually tells very little of consequence. It is knowing what is going on in the world from reading headlines only. Again, this speaks to a societal issue where volume over quality is the desire and volume means as much as possible quickly.

This results in cutting of content corners, rushing to get things out, lack of though, logic, fast thinking over slow. But, when it comes to something you really enjoy, why aren't we savouring it, investigating it, learning all we can about it? We shouldn't consume what we love as if we are paying for it by the hour.

There is no easy road, no short-cut to being proficient at something and everyone has their own hurdles to face. Just because the life challenges you have another might not, doesn't mean they are unchallenged. When it comes to quality content creation, work ethic is required and if you are interested in the science of it, rushing it is going to result in bad science. As is, doing it for the money. Letting value dictate the content is generally going to lose the authenticity, lose the audience and, lose your interest to write at all.

Rebounding for more

Now, I haven't gone too much into where to get content yet but, I have decided to finish with it and show how this post might benefit you.

I started it off by bouncing off the content from @mobbs, someone who I find does produce decent content. The post today was something that really interests me so, there is my stimulus, my spark of inspiration, my food for thought. Consume well, perform well.

This is a social platform and interaction can be created in several ways. Using the content of others to springboard from is not only a good way to be inspired, it is effective in creating engagement, building a network, finding people with like minds and also diverse thoughts. I hope that the content i create adds to the network too, inspires thoughts in others. They don't need to agree with me, but before they disagree, i hope to give them my reasoning and the space to consider it.

If content doesn't give me the space to think, it hasn't provided the hook to engage me. This is a major problem with the wikipedia content that tends to appear under some tags. The wiki presents the what and how, it doesn't generally give the why and what if. You see the problem?

I am a why and what if person and just about everyone is a why person. The only real reason to read the wiki is when there is already a reason (why) to search for it so, presenting that to an unknown audience is not going to create the engagement in most as, they have no reason to read it. The hook has to come hard and fast to get people to read on, especially if they have never read your content before.

Speculation of content

When I commented on @mobbs post he called me a "SteemStem Speculator" and this is probably a fitting title as I generally don't focus there but, when I find something interesting that applies to that field, I am happy to present it to them. No, I still don't present the way they want it but, there is a science to the way I do present also and one that most in scientific fields miss or minimize.

They are generally the What and How types who often fail to recognize that their audience is human (less so at Steem) and requires a broader understanding before the bombardment of detail. If you haven't got the memo on the general archetype of technical people, 'social awareness' isn't generally high on the list. It is no wonder that when it comes to scientific understanding, many layman do not have the core understandings of even basic principles as they have not had the trigger points tripped to engage them. Many people find that when a complex issue that they avoided is presented well, they are much more interested than they thought they would be. When it comes to communication of ideas from one person to another, presentation is key.

Work on yours.

I hope that this helps people and gives them the space to think a little differently about the way they source, develop and present their information. Although I don't like giving lists, here is a general one to follow.

• Stop consuming
• Start discovering
• Follow the white rabbit
   

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]