This is a fascinating discussion but something is still missing:
Learning is not about information, it’s about grokking.
The magic of the interview podcast is the privilege of hearing the nuance of someone’s thoughts. You can feel their brain spinning in real time. You can gradually begin to comprehend their modes of thinking and their source of wisdom.
Within just a few hours of listening to someone, you can begin to predict - nearly exactly! - how they would respond to the next question, even if it’s novel. Even if the information is surprising; the mode of thinking of that person will not be.
This means we can tap into the minds of incredibly smart people and begin to.. grok their grok.
Deep transfer of wisdom, at scale. Is there anything more magical than that?
It’s not possible to do this with all clients; that’s not my argument. But in a big company it should be done with as a matter of practise with at least a cohort.
But yes there is a ton of ignorance in this world. I constantly have to remind folks that the world outside of Spreadheets is insanely messy.
Wow. This article is excellent. It’s not just the content; he’s even made nice graphics… And the aesthetic of the post on mobile is 10/10.
The issues at hand in this post are real.
1. Problem 1 - Awareness
Many marketers outside of mega super super high paying startups are BARELY aware of these factors.
I’m an amateur at this stuff but people look at me like I’m a wizard when I get my - VERY SIMPLE - Spreadsheets out.
That’s one thing.
Problem 2 - The tools
these platforms and analytics tools are kind of shit at piecing the story together.
I’m the sole marketer at a (very rapidly growing, if I may) software startup.
Every so often, as an exercise, I go back and piece together the entire journey of our highest value opportunities and prepare a nice little report.
The idea is to show the team that the buying process is complex and that tracking in our neat little funnels is a rough proxy at best.
Problem 3 - untracked interaction
We sell a product that is used by teams. This means that a TON of our traffic is going to be from team members coming in to have a look after team member A discovers us. But what happens if it’s team member C that gets in touch? How do you attribute that?
Doing regular deep dives on individual customers is the best way to maintain sanity in an organisation and stop the inane conversations that non-marketing team members tend to start. The deep dives, in my experience, tend to be the thing that most generates trust in the marketing activity - because it goes from being just an abstract game of big numbers to ‘oh hey, that actually works, how clever.’
Appeal to authority is only a fallacy when the authority is not an actual authority on the exact topic being mentioned.
Your broader point is right; obviously if we stop to poke at certain assumptions, the occasional one will collapse.
However, the pathway you’ve just suggested is less practical than you think. The GP is talking about a systematic, coordinated exploration effort of known unknowns.
Metaphorically - he/she is saying that there’s more likely to be gold at the unexplored end of gold mine, not in the excavated dirt.
If by best food scene, you were to take the top 20-25 cuisines of the world and look for good examples .. ?
Probably Melbourne, London and New York.
Have spent enough time in Los Angeles to know that it doesn’t reach the level of the above cities. It’s great at what it does - Mexican, Korean, Chinese, Salvadoran even, fusion - but the geography just doesn’t help it.
Barcelona is not a particularly great food City (sure, there are a few elite chefs but in general the food scene offers little of variety). Want good food in Spain, go to Basque Country.
Tokyo, San Sebastián, Lyon are cities which are insanely good at rocking their own cuisine which puts them in a different category of food cities. You might say ‘International’ v ‘Local’
International food cities -
Melbourne London New York
Sydney Los Angeles
(And probably Toronto Houston Vancouver but have never been)
The above cities are the great melting pots of the world
Something very special is happening in Melbourne’s food scene, especially in the last 10 years. Pick literally any Asian cuisine or food trend. you can name, even something super obscure, and you can find special examples.
Learning is not about information, it’s about grokking.
The magic of the interview podcast is the privilege of hearing the nuance of someone’s thoughts. You can feel their brain spinning in real time. You can gradually begin to comprehend their modes of thinking and their source of wisdom.
Within just a few hours of listening to someone, you can begin to predict - nearly exactly! - how they would respond to the next question, even if it’s novel. Even if the information is surprising; the mode of thinking of that person will not be.
This means we can tap into the minds of incredibly smart people and begin to.. grok their grok.
Deep transfer of wisdom, at scale. Is there anything more magical than that?