Here's Why I Endeavor to Capture Content Publicly and Have Conversations On My Blog

If I pointed you to this post it was because you either came up to me after a panel, or you pinged me asking to meet or talk (or have coffee, etc.), or I wanted to share with you how & why I like to answer questions so others can benefit.

I'm always looking for ways to gain and share knowledge in efficient ways. In the spirit of my posts on knowledge building and creating process (and even making a process for process), I've created a process to have interactions in ways that are efficient for all of us, and build knowledge for everyone whenever possible:

If you'd like to have a conversation on any topic, the absolute best way is to write a post in the community section of my blog.

I am really working to build this blog as a resource to entrepreneurs, and your participation means a lot to me. You can also post comments on any blog post -- I'll read & respond to each one. I'll dedicate much more time to conversations that happen on my blog, because everyone can benefit from the knowledge sharing. I greatly prefer to have these conversations in public when possible because the conversation becomes part of a public knowledge base that anyone can learn and benefit from -- this is part of the reason I said that Henry Ford would love blogs. Plus, it's part of our company manifesto to capture content (point #13!) If you're asking me something sensitive, you can just use a 'thowaway' username to keep yourself anonymous.

Sometimes I invite people to have lunch at our office in San Francisco, where we cater lunch for our employees. If we have a good conversation in the comments section of the blog and want to continue it in person, company lunches are typically a great time for me to do that and I'll invite you to join us.

If you don't want to have a public conversation, then it becomes much harder for me to dedicate my time to helping you privately. I encourage you to just anonymize any issues you're dealing with as much as possible so you can post them in the community section of my blog vs. insisting on a private conversation.

I hope you can help me build a public knowledgebase to benefit others going through the same experiences as we are.

An while I'm at events, I always try to capture the content from an event. Why have the content from a great event sit only inside the heads of those who were there, when if just one person captures the content, it can be shared with the world?

Here is a post showcasing the sub-$500 rig I use to capture content at conferences, panels, and any other public event I attend. I typically just set the camera up in the back of the room, or on a chair next to me. People look at me in a strange way when I set the camera up, because it's not yet culturally accepted to capture content. But I know that while I may be getting a strange look at that moment, the reality is that I'm capturing content that nobody else at the event is capturing, and I'm sharing it on this blog for someone like you to be able to learn from it, and that makes all the strange stares worthwhile!