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> You'd think there would be lots of intelligent people who had interesting ideas and wrote them down, but really there aren't. There are a couple interesting
by steve 19y ago
> You'd think there would be lots of intelligent people who had interesting ideas and wrote them down, but really there aren't.
There are a couple interesting problems here. What there is no lack of is intelligent people with ideas that they never share.
- pg 19y agoMaybe more accurate to say there are a lot of intelligent people with half-formed ideas they never fully explore by writing them down. Writing is not like hitting print.
- Alex3917 19y agoCertainly part of the problem is the time barrier. IIRC Guy Kawasaki said he averages seven hours per post. It's about the same for me for my posts that have made techmeme or reddit. I'd love to sit down and blog something about the social policy implications of pygmalion effect or whatever but it's hard justify blowing off an entire day more than a couple times a month. The other problem though is that there is very little theory surrounding what actually makes something insightful, informative, interesting, etc. There are hundreds of books or grammar and style, but try looking for a book on insightfulness. Google turns up literally zero useful results. If there were a book like Strunk/White but on substance, not style, it would greatly ameliorate the problem. I've been working on the problem for a while now myself, not from the perspective of a great writer but rather from the perspective of someone who knows what creates value for him as a reader. The problem is before you publish something like that it kind of has to be perfect.