Why I Blog

I think every blog should have a Why I Blog post. This is mine.

There are thinkers. Academics and researchers do a lot of good work and they know a lot about their interest area, which is generally a very specific and specialized area. There is a very protective frame of mind in academia about who said it first, whose idea it was, and how much one has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in a particular domain.

There are doers. Employees working in organizations implement. They create processes and get stuff done. The best ones get stuff done quickly and efficiently and with follow-through. It’s not about who thought of it but about who did it. But a lot of times they don’t actually know the best way. So they benchmark, which is not always the best way either.

I notice there’s kind of a disconnect between the thinkers and the doers. They don’t speak the same language. The thinkers have such an intricate mind map with super-connected synapses so they are like, “this is so obvious, A leads to C when moderated by B, why don’t you get it?”

While reading tons (literally) of research in grad school, I was thinking, this is good stuff, this link between psychology and orgs., why don’t people use it? This includes theories and articles from the 1970’s, by the way, so it’s not like we haven’t had the time. The thing is, for people who don’t have the desire to read 30-page, size-8 font, technical articles… bite-size, easy-to-remember information is key – especially if it comes in a diagram of some sort. And so the disconnect is perpetuated, because people who think up innovative, useful, valid theories don’t have time to draw diagrams.

So I thought, there needs to be a middle man. Then I realized, I’m good at synthesizing complexity and making it simple to apply, I have time, I’m good at drawing diagrams, I can be that connection. This blog is a way to organize my thoughts about that. It’ll carry over into my work life.

OK and from a selfish and personal point of view, I want to increase my self-awareness and be able to explain things more effectively. I tend to under-communicate and be overly concise, especially verbally, so I need to practice the opposite.