Just before I graduated from my undergraduate program at Georgia Tech, I sent two emails to help me through the process of figuring out where to go next.
The first, due to my interest in global health, was to the President of the Global Health program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Tadataki Yamada. At the time, I was right in the thick of things with my research into technology development for global health, and had lots of ideas (and lots of questions) about how to impact healthcare in the developing world. When Dr. Yamada’s staff scheduled a 15-minute call for him to advise me on my next steps, I was thrilled. I spent weeks preparing for the call, and when I finally got my 15 minutes to talk to one of the leaders in the field, I had condensed my questions and planned my time to get some real meaningful content out of the call.
Several weeks later, I sent an email to Steve Jurvetson, a well-known venture capitalist. I had been keeping up with Steve’s flickr stream, The J Curve, and knew through several articles that Steve knew lots of things about early-stage biomedical companies. I spent 15 minutes composing a well-thought out email (or so I thought), and summarized the crux of my request as:
It's the perfect example of understanding the space between stimulus and response. Asking a good question gives the responder the psychological space to give to a good answer, and helps both of you grow. Science is all about asking good questions, and I wasn't being a very good scientist.
Predictably, Steve sent back a very quick response along the lines of, it’s a great field, but I’m too busy right now to help. I realize now that I didn't give him enough constraints to effectively answer my question. Strangers can’t decide for us what it is we should focus on – that has to come from us. But once we get our feet pointed in the right direction, people like Dr. Yamada can help bridge the chasms along the way.
Blogging is a little like that. I certainly don't know that I provide a lot of insight or "answers" on my fledgling blog... or that I want to. Being able to write an effective post is like asking a good question - how do you present the topic in such a way that allows people to formulate their own answers, and hopefully, their own questions?
(image courtesy of...)
The first, due to my interest in global health, was to the President of the Global Health program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Tadataki Yamada. At the time, I was right in the thick of things with my research into technology development for global health, and had lots of ideas (and lots of questions) about how to impact healthcare in the developing world. When Dr. Yamada’s staff scheduled a 15-minute call for him to advise me on my next steps, I was thrilled. I spent weeks preparing for the call, and when I finally got my 15 minutes to talk to one of the leaders in the field, I had condensed my questions and planned my time to get some real meaningful content out of the call.
Several weeks later, I sent an email to Steve Jurvetson, a well-known venture capitalist. I had been keeping up with Steve’s flickr stream, The J Curve, and knew through several articles that Steve knew lots of things about early-stage biomedical companies. I spent 15 minutes composing a well-thought out email (or so I thought), and summarized the crux of my request as:
I am particularly interested in biomedical design for the developing world, among other things, and would love to hear your perspective and thoughts on the future of biotechnology in this area.Looking back on that email makes me cringe. Peter Drucker once said, “The most important and difficult job is never to find the right answers; it is to find the right question.” My question didn’t give Steve any insight into what I was already thinking and what kinds of technology I was inquiring about. I was relying too much on a good answer to help me figure out where I needed to go, but I wasn’t mature enough in my question-asking to help myself get there.
It's the perfect example of understanding the space between stimulus and response. Asking a good question gives the responder the psychological space to give to a good answer, and helps both of you grow. Science is all about asking good questions, and I wasn't being a very good scientist.
Predictably, Steve sent back a very quick response along the lines of, it’s a great field, but I’m too busy right now to help. I realize now that I didn't give him enough constraints to effectively answer my question. Strangers can’t decide for us what it is we should focus on – that has to come from us. But once we get our feet pointed in the right direction, people like Dr. Yamada can help bridge the chasms along the way.
Blogging is a little like that. I certainly don't know that I provide a lot of insight or "answers" on my fledgling blog... or that I want to. Being able to write an effective post is like asking a good question - how do you present the topic in such a way that allows people to formulate their own answers, and hopefully, their own questions?
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