I’m sharing this because I want to use tonight’s post to better formulate an idea I had when I misheard a phrase while listening to a podcast yesterday during our last evening dog walk. I don’t even really remember what I misheard at this point because I spent the remainder of the walk trying to work out the notion I had. The gist of it, however, was about how we spend a lot of time looking for, “a needle in a haystack.” And that’s our jumping-off point.
See, I feel like a lot of times, we develop a number of ideas trying to locate and extract the needle. Can we use a magnet? Could we get a light to reflect off it somehow? What about sifting it to the bottom? What I don’t think we spend enough time on is how to sort through the hay. In my mind, that’s where the problem really is.
Essentially, it’s a signal-to-noise issue. And the methods to going after the needle just add to the chaos, and probably won’t yield the results we’re hoping for. But, in my content strategy-focused brain, I want to bring some order to that stack of hay, leaving nothing but order and the elusive needle.
As an example, I’d advocate developing a sorting system for all the hay. Let’s say we just start organizing them by size. This would do a couple of things in my mind:
Bring some focus to the search
Force a methodical, systematic evaluation of each piece of hay
Identify what’s been done and what’s left to do
Ensure that nothing was missed
Obviously, this would take a considerable amount of time. But the other advantage is that you’d be able to evaluate how long it should take you to get through the pile and estimate when you’ll be able to actually stumble across the needle.
Thankfully, I don’t think I’ll ever actually have to find a needle in a haystack. But I have had to come up with ways for people to find the information they’re looking for amongst a sea of other information. By thinking about how everything else is sorted, we help people more easily find what they’re looking for, rather than sending them on a Quixotic path. Thanks for letting me tilt at this windmill for a bit tonight.
Taree
13 March 2023
Hey.
During my — what seems like — hourly scrolling of LinkedIn, I came across a post about writing that resonated with me. I know I’ve talked about the act of writing as a way to crystalize ideas, but the link Jonathon Colman shared captured a lot of what I tried to say the other night on my own.
I’m sharing this because I want to use tonight’s post to better formulate an idea I had when I misheard a phrase while listening to a podcast yesterday during our last evening dog walk. I don’t even really remember what I misheard at this point because I spent the remainder of the walk trying to work out the notion I had. The gist of it, however, was about how we spend a lot of time looking for, “a needle in a haystack.” And that’s our jumping-off point.
See, I feel like a lot of times, we develop a number of ideas trying to locate and extract the needle. Can we use a magnet? Could we get a light to reflect off it somehow? What about sifting it to the bottom? What I don’t think we spend enough time on is how to sort through the hay. In my mind, that’s where the problem really is.
Essentially, it’s a signal-to-noise issue. And the methods to going after the needle just add to the chaos, and probably won’t yield the results we’re hoping for. But, in my content strategy-focused brain, I want to bring some order to that stack of hay, leaving nothing but order and the elusive needle.
As an example, I’d advocate developing a sorting system for all the hay. Let’s say we just start organizing them by size. This would do a couple of things in my mind:
Bring some focus to the search
Force a methodical, systematic evaluation of each piece of hay
Identify what’s been done and what’s left to do
Ensure that nothing was missed
Obviously, this would take a considerable amount of time. But the other advantage is that you’d be able to evaluate how long it should take you to get through the pile and estimate when you’ll be able to actually stumble across the needle.
Thankfully, I don’t think I’ll ever actually have to find a needle in a haystack. But I have had to come up with ways for people to find the information they’re looking for amongst a sea of other information. By thinking about how everything else is sorted, we help people more easily find what they’re looking for, rather than sending them on a Quixotic path. Thanks for letting me tilt at this windmill for a bit tonight.
See you tomorrow?