Painting the Roses Red
Think about what you studied in college, or, if you didn't go to college, the industry in which you currently work. I'm going to assume, like most academic fields, that's it probably very boring. It might be technical, business-related, or maybe one of the social sciences.
Here's my question: would it be possible for you to write a book or start a blog that made the topic interesting not only to people working within the field, but also to a more mainstream audience?
Bruce Schneier is an author and blogger in the computer security industry, but a lot of what he writes would be of interest not only to security professionals but to the general public, simply because he writes like a human being, about daily things that most people deal with. He offers his take on airline security, identity theft, privacy issues, and the dangers of computerizing political elections.
Before he came along, imagine being challenged to make "security and technology" interesting to a more mainstream audience. Not an easy task. Like most academic fields, it's full of people trying to talk very technical in a way that makes themselves sound smart, and a lot of them are just parroting the conventional wisdom to people in the same field.
The result? A field of white roses. White roses are nice, to be certain, but people don't find them interesting. They don't send them to one another on Valentine's Day. They don't exude passion, just banality. They're ordinary.
So, the challenge is to paint the roses red. Make them vibrant and interesting so people start to take note. If you do a search for "computer security" on Amazon.com, you don't get Bruce Schneier's books. Instead, you get a lot of textbooks that are all dryly telling computer people the technical details behind securing servers, blah blah. You'd have to dig for a while and ask around before you found Bruce.
I see some people in the audience are still not convinced...all right, let me try this for myself. I studied Accounting in college, and that's what I have a Bachelor's degree in. As far as I know, the field of Accounting doesn't have any superstars that write stuff that would interest anyone who isn't an accountant. Does that mean it can't be done? I doubt it. It's all in the presentation.
Now, it might be challenging to make accounting interesting to people who aren't in business, so let's just focus on managers and CEOs that have to learn Accounting, and grind their teeth as they wade through "Bookkeeping for Dummies" or whatever. How can we engage them?
Most people who learned I was an Accounting major ask for help with their taxes. "Accounting" doesn't equal "Tax Returns", but it's a common myth, so let's start there. Break this book on tax breaks into three sections: individuals, small business owners, and corporations. Find the common tax breaks for each, and list them. There are tons of books about what deductions are available. But my guess is that the majority of people and business owners are going to take advantage of a very small few of them. (it's the Pareto Principle) So, let's cut out the ones that hardly anyone takes advantage of.
First, people read stories. It's how the brain comprehends the world around it. We tell ourselves little stories, and make up little narratives in our heads, to make sense of our lives and the people we interact with. So, step one is to back up everything we say, every point we make, with a story from the real world. Make it human. Describe a problem someone was facing, possibly in crisis mode, and talk about how the tax break helped them.
You get the idea. It wouldn't be super easy, but it could be done. Why don't I do this, you ask? Because I don't work at H&R Freakin' Block, that's why. I don't even work as an accountant anymore. It would waaaayyyy too much trouble for me to find the stories required to make this sort of thing interesting.
The Accounting section at your local Borders is filled with white roses. It would be helpful, especially in the wake of the Enron scandals, if someone could write a more mainstream book that helps people understand just how corporate fraud works. I know someone wrote a book about Enron, but it's 500 pages long and is mostly irrelevant narrative that even I, as an accountant, thought was tedious.
The real reason we should try to paint the roses red is because things like Enron confuse and worry people. It makes them want to comprehend the world around them. They want to understand. People just don't want to be bored to death while you're explaining it to them. That's the challenge.
Here's my question: would it be possible for you to write a book or start a blog that made the topic interesting not only to people working within the field, but also to a more mainstream audience?
Bruce Schneier is an author and blogger in the computer security industry, but a lot of what he writes would be of interest not only to security professionals but to the general public, simply because he writes like a human being, about daily things that most people deal with. He offers his take on airline security, identity theft, privacy issues, and the dangers of computerizing political elections.
Before he came along, imagine being challenged to make "security and technology" interesting to a more mainstream audience. Not an easy task. Like most academic fields, it's full of people trying to talk very technical in a way that makes themselves sound smart, and a lot of them are just parroting the conventional wisdom to people in the same field.
The result? A field of white roses. White roses are nice, to be certain, but people don't find them interesting. They don't send them to one another on Valentine's Day. They don't exude passion, just banality. They're ordinary.
So, the challenge is to paint the roses red. Make them vibrant and interesting so people start to take note. If you do a search for "computer security" on Amazon.com, you don't get Bruce Schneier's books. Instead, you get a lot of textbooks that are all dryly telling computer people the technical details behind securing servers, blah blah. You'd have to dig for a while and ask around before you found Bruce.
I see some people in the audience are still not convinced...all right, let me try this for myself. I studied Accounting in college, and that's what I have a Bachelor's degree in. As far as I know, the field of Accounting doesn't have any superstars that write stuff that would interest anyone who isn't an accountant. Does that mean it can't be done? I doubt it. It's all in the presentation.
Now, it might be challenging to make accounting interesting to people who aren't in business, so let's just focus on managers and CEOs that have to learn Accounting, and grind their teeth as they wade through "Bookkeeping for Dummies" or whatever. How can we engage them?
Most people who learned I was an Accounting major ask for help with their taxes. "Accounting" doesn't equal "Tax Returns", but it's a common myth, so let's start there. Break this book on tax breaks into three sections: individuals, small business owners, and corporations. Find the common tax breaks for each, and list them. There are tons of books about what deductions are available. But my guess is that the majority of people and business owners are going to take advantage of a very small few of them. (it's the Pareto Principle) So, let's cut out the ones that hardly anyone takes advantage of.
First, people read stories. It's how the brain comprehends the world around it. We tell ourselves little stories, and make up little narratives in our heads, to make sense of our lives and the people we interact with. So, step one is to back up everything we say, every point we make, with a story from the real world. Make it human. Describe a problem someone was facing, possibly in crisis mode, and talk about how the tax break helped them.
You get the idea. It wouldn't be super easy, but it could be done. Why don't I do this, you ask? Because I don't work at H&R Freakin' Block, that's why. I don't even work as an accountant anymore. It would waaaayyyy too much trouble for me to find the stories required to make this sort of thing interesting.
The Accounting section at your local Borders is filled with white roses. It would be helpful, especially in the wake of the Enron scandals, if someone could write a more mainstream book that helps people understand just how corporate fraud works. I know someone wrote a book about Enron, but it's 500 pages long and is mostly irrelevant narrative that even I, as an accountant, thought was tedious.
The real reason we should try to paint the roses red is because things like Enron confuse and worry people. It makes them want to comprehend the world around them. They want to understand. People just don't want to be bored to death while you're explaining it to them. That's the challenge.