Bullshit Industrial Complex
Twitter threads, LinkedIn stories you can find it everywhere these days!
And I almost fell into the trap...
It came around wrapped innocently in the form of 'build your audience' advice!
Seemed simple enough, I am trying to solve a problem for a certain user segment - let's get their attention by sharing useful content!
I will not claim it as my original work, I will give credit where due - so no harm done.
Right?
Wrong.
To get an idea of how it is done I started following some big names on Twitter and was introduced to the world of 'Threads'. Mostly, long series of tweets going into double digits which explain a complex topic. To be honest, I do find some of them very useful and have them bookmarked to be read in the Twitter future (aka God knows when!)
Overtime I realized that if I keep adding people who share these threads to my timeline I will only be reading tweets all day! (Jack Dorsey must be giggling in his office!)
Something didn't add up.
These threads were there to help me understand topics quickly right? Then why was I getting lost in a sea of threads? Why was my bookmark list growing longer with no value add to my day-to-day work? How come there were 50 VCs, 72 founders, 105 growth marketing guru's, and 5 Naval bots on my timeline, all talking about the same thing!?
I was stuck in a bullshit complex!
The Complex is best explained by Sean Blanda in this article. I am just copy pasting here from his article, as he explains it better than I ever could:
---
The bullshit industrial complex is a pyramid of groups that goes something like this:
Group 1: People actually shipping ideas, launching businesses, doing creative work, taking risks and sharing first-hand learnings.
Group 2: People writing about group 1 in clear, concise, accessible language. [And here rests the line of bullshit demarcation…]
Group 3: People aggregating the learnings of group 2, passing it off as first-hand wisdom.
Group 4: People aggregating the learnings of group 3, believing they are as worthy of praise as the people in group 1.
Groups 5+: And downward….
The Complex eventually becomes a full fledged self-sufficient ecosystem when people in group 4 are reviewing books by people in group 3 who are only tweeting people in group 2 who are appearing on the podcasts started by people in group 3.
---
Sean talks about the Complex from a creative perspective, it's a good piece do give it a read (~7 minutes read).
For me, it was a timely realization that content creation for the sake of audience building is not my goal.
As I was revisiting this goal, my objective became clearer. It was not about building an audience, it's about solving a problem for a certain segment - to be precise:
Enable 26-35 yr olds build what they are passionate about with an actionable process to take them from ideation to execution.
Let's do a basic MBA check (need to use the degree somewhere!)
- Defined the WHO: 26-35 yr old
- Defined the WHAT: build what they are passionate about
- Defined the HOW: with an actionable process to take them from ideation to execution.
The 'HOW' here is a bit detailed - it is a combination of months of research (both consumer and published), multiple trials and errors, and sleepless nights of synthesis, discussions and a lot of writing!
To be honest, I hope and I believe this 'HOW' keeps improving in the coming months too!
I believe there are three key channels that can deliver this 'HOW' to our target segment:
- Workshop: 1-1 personalized workshop built on the principles of Design Thinking
- Podcast: Experiences of those who have travelled the path of building their passion
- Community: Curated content collected, read, analyzed, and absorbed into #1, all available in its raw form for those looking to start building what they are passionate about
So here we are, building this Community to enable all its members to start building what we are passionate about!
You can access all episodes of the Curio Revelio Podcast here!
More information on the Workshop coming soon!
The Bullshit Industrial Complex: Recycling work by others as an analysis to present yourself as an expert.
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