I spend a lot of time
reading on the internet, while that little voice in my brain is
haunting, “Is this a good use of your time?”
Suw
Charman, one of my first favorite bloggers told of one
of her editors
asking, “Why do you read so much? Just write something.”
We need to learn more,
including better context for what we already know. When I am reading,
I am first looking for solutions to my current projects. Then
solutions for my coming projects.
Because I don’t work
alone, I also find things that will help the people who help me. Many things I read I send to people I am working with.
That has a nonobvious
advantage of over time giving us a common base of reference for what
we are doing.
When I am starting a new
project, I read up on it. I’ll even crack open a Gmail and write
the terms I’m researching, and then follow the ads that appear.
Once, when I was selling a
company, the owner told me there was one industry analyst firm for
that vertical. Using the Gmail ad research approach, I discovered
that there were three, and we were using the one who had a 12% market
share. That was a useful six minutes.
A twenty year client is
switching from selling financial products to publicizing early human
origins. We’re both reading a lot of new books. I’m getting a lot
of valuable information on successful organizations, some of them
200,000 years old.
He complimented me on my
discipline sharing things I was learning that helped him, which was
how I started thinking about this post.
Peter Drucker said that in
the manufacturing age, power came from hoarding information. In the
information age, power comes from giving it away.
The first time I read that
I liked it. Now I’m starting to understand it.
What is your learning
regimen?
Sales
Lab Resources Hidden Treasure
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