The Rake of Ignorance

Speaker A: Ahoy, mateys. Thanks for joining up with the good ship Lions Way and our jolly band of freebooters. For this episode. We endeavor to talk about the manners and ways of content creation in a way that's not dry as month old hardtack.

Speaker B: Yar my teeth.

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Speaker B: a week on Garr's Day.

Speaker A: We let you know about the latest episode of the Smelly Pirate Content Creation show and share tidbits about The Lion's Way B2B content. Sign up at lionswaycontent.com Email.

Speaker C: Lion's way presents the smelly pirate content creation show. It's been a while, but unfortunately we're back. We sailed across, like six of the seven seas and have returned with tales of content marketing from lands far abroad. Uh, and this is indeed Lion's Way presents the Smelly Pirate Content Creation Show. I am Eric, and I am here once again with our creative director, Joel. Joel, in your travels across all of the seas, which was the briniest.

Speaker A: The Sargasso Sea is maybe a sub C. But it's so briny. It's so briny.

Speaker C: Yeah, I sort of felt that way too. And we are also here with our upwardly, uh, mobile, uh, boson. Carl. Carl, what position have you landed in this week?

Speaker B: I believe I am still the, uh, slop bucket emptier. So I think that is my new, uh, new job this week. The slop bucket is one of the few things you really want to avoid on a pirate ship. But I'm in charge of the slop buckets.

Speaker C: So I love filling the slop bucket, but I hate emptying it.

Speaker B: Gar.

Speaker C: So for this episode where we are returning from our, um, our, our short break, uh, we decided that we're going to have, uh, surprise topics. And these aren't necessarily like, jump scare topics as much as they are topics that only one of us knows about and the other two do not. So we had a very. As you can imagine, planning this episode, uh, is very boring, where we all sat and looked at each other. Like that scene in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, you know, where they're doing the showdown where each one of them is like, who's gonna, who's gonna talk first? So, um, so as host, I'm going to just decide. Uh, Joel, so surprise us. What's your topic?

Speaker A: I wanted to suggest that we, uh, in my suggestion that we do this with a timer so that we don't carry on about them. And there's some tension about getting everybody's words in edgewise.

Speaker C: Okay, hold on a second. I have a solution for this. That's it. The toilet flesh. I will time you. If we go for too long, I will play the toilet flush, which means that it's time for that topic to

Speaker B: end and then it starts.

Speaker A: And I like you not saying the number of minutes out loud and just doing it whenever you feel like it. I think that's.

Speaker C: I'm ready. I will be arbitrary. I will be a. I will be an arbitrary judge.

Speaker A: Yes, Eric, the Arbitron.

Speaker C: Uh, so, Joel, surprise us. The clock is ticking.

Speaker A: I want to talk about authenticity today. I have always wanted our clients to be authentic. Technology sucks mostly, and we could say that, but everybody wants to say, brand new day, Everything is beautiful now that we're in the. In the marketplace. And I'm very curious with the depth of research people are able to do, and also the fact that brands are using less production for things. Where we used to, like, use a video crew to do a case study interview, now, you know, they just record a zoom call or some sort of thing like that. So things are already kind of like more authentic feeling because they're more casual. So what do you guys think about utilizing authenticity? Whether it's going to be successful and how we would do it?

Speaker C: I mean, in terms of how we do it, I think the way we usually do it is through a lot of research and engaging subject matter experts as well, much as possible. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would. I would answer that question on a. On a different level. Um, okay, because one, I. It's a yes and answer, like. Yes, Eric. And, um, I think authenticity is going to become more and more vital in the way you present your content, because more and more content is going to be authentically artificial. And we are seeing that, uh, videos are becoming increasingly artificial. Um, uh, even still photographs are becoming increasingly artificial. And so to set yourself apart, whether that is a zoom call, where it is a casual setting and you are real humans talking about a subject in a credible way, I think how you choose to present yourself is going to be very important. And. And how. And authenticity in the broader sense of your, uh, of your full menu of content, you can't have a bunch of AI written blogs on your blog, on your website, and one authentically written blog and expect anybody to give a shit about it.

Speaker A: You know, how far do we get into our podcast, uh, before we mentioned AI? A couple minutes there. Um, and I guess that that is part of my inspiration for it is that two people talking casually and saying like, oh, we got a lot to work on here or something like that is not what AI is going to come up with. And so it's going to signal that value of a human made message. And I'm intrigued by how that could be a part of somebody's, uh, attention getting and engagement and being able to

Speaker B: speak to multiple audiences at once in a way that, that resonates with them so that they know they're being spoken to. I am saying things about my, uh, service offering that are, that I perceive to be valuable to this Persona. But I don't think of it as a Persona. I think of it as a person. I try to visualize a person doing a job that the service offering or technology offering that I have benefits. And so I'm speaking to them as if they're a person and I want to help them do their job. And that's kind of one, I'm kind of in a rabbit hole there. But that's, that's one way to kind of do what you're talking about.

Speaker A: Yeah, Uh, I think where you see that and part of the other, part of my inspiration for this was that some of our clients are very close to open source communities and open source communities are communities. You're accountable for what you say, not just in the community, but about the community. And so those businesses, because they're, you know, in the Slack channel and they are offering, uh, commits and things, you know, their communication about everything can't be like shitting on the open source product because theirs is better. It has to be like, people use the open source program, that's fine. The open source option, that's fine. We're a different option for a different category. It's refreshing. But it is a little bit of a, uh, like adjustment for me. Instead of just being like, win every conversation, it's like, well, you can use this over here, but you really want to use this if you're over here. That excites me as a content creator because it's not glossing over the fact that a Swiss army knife is kind of bad at everything. It's only m mildly serviceable for everything. Right. And instead you could be like, yeah, you could use our buck knife to drive screws. It will be tedious, but if you need to like lop off limbs.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, we're the one skin a

Speaker A: goat or skin a goat. A vegan.

Speaker C: I was kind of, um, curious about your use of the word casual earlier. Both of you seem to kind of like imply that there's a connection between, um, being. Being casual and being authentic. And I'm not really sure I understand where that comes from. And I'm wondering if that was just a slip or if you could go a little bit deeper into that.

Speaker A: In my view, that's, uh, it's signaling that it's unscripted. Right? It's signaling that I'm speaking off the cuff. And thus, I guess it's interesting. So it. I think that that would. That off the cuff or casual speech suggests authenticity. Now, it doesn't have to be. Obviously there are certain, um, captains of industry who do apparently off the cuff product releases all the time that are far from off the cuff and far from authentic. Um, so. Yeah, you got me. You got me, Eric.

Speaker C: Well, I mean, I was curious about it because, like, a lot of the stuff that we do when we produce content, if it comes across, if the final product comes across as casual, that casualness isn't authentically casual because it's gone through rounds of editing and rounds of feedback and there's been discussion, there's been all the stuff that's gone into it. And you know, everything we make is like, fairly carefully constructed and kind of the opposite of casual, but still intended to portray authenticity.

Speaker B: That's a good question. It really is a good question. Because I was, as Joel was talking, I was thinking about. Well, I guess I was kind of thinking I was a. Focusing on. On video because Joel had mentioned it kind of prefaced things with the, with the zoom conversation. So I'm thinking, oh, yeah, I guess what I really meant was, you know, ah, authentically spontaneous. Conversationally spontaneous, um, in a way that is recognizing if it's two people having a conversation about it, let's just say a technology application, and they are responding to each other. They're responding to what each other says in a spontaneous using process, thought process. This is not simply finding a piece of information in their brains and regurgitating it because they think that might be what needs to be said next. They are, they're riffing off of each other like a good. Like a good jazz band, for example, or. But yeah, good catch on. Casual. So I, I will. I will say that I, That I had a misuse of it. But I will also admit that you are right in that we, in an effort to be authentic, we often find ourselves, uh, crafting very, um, well modeled and heavily, um, scrutinized attempts at being casual in our writing or attempts at being spontaneous in our writing. So, uh, look at us. We're speaking to you directly. And we've gone through 15 revision cycles. To get to this piece that you're reading is if somebody just scrawled it on a piece of paper and threw it at a printer. You know, so.

Speaker A: Oh, gosh, that's fascinating. Yeah, man. Eric, it's, uh, everything that, um, Carl said. The cue for me was, well, people are getting accustomed to consuming things that are very casual. It's a way that people are indicating authenticity. People seem to like that. But we can certainly do it with highly modeled, highly reviewed content. It gets harder because the sales guy comes in and says, like, but I do want to sell to the people who are trying to drive screws with buck knives. I totally want that opportunity. And you've got to, like, be like, we're not doing that today. And somebody's got to be strong enough to back them off from that. You know, this is my model. Like, my model of authenticity is, can you admit flaws? Is that, Is that good? Does that work for you guys?

Speaker C: I think I might approach it similarly to that. But I think there's also a thing in there where the, the format in which the information is being presented, uh, changes how you, um, judge its authenticity.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.

Speaker C: Because you can have like, um, you can have like a documentary video where that is scripted and still authentic.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You can have, um, a scientific paper which is like extremely formal language, you know, the exact opposite of casual, that comes across as basically the most authenticity that you can get or the most fraudulent that you can get. Either way, authentic, fraudulent, hard to tell.

Speaker B: Uh, you bring up something really good, Derek, in that how you present authenticity plays a big part in whether or not the desired audience will receive it as authentic. I can say that you could script something and have it read by a professional, uh, voice actor or an AI and have that individual speaking in a monotone over a bunch of stock footage or AI generated footage of stuff happening. And people will just go, what a bunch of bullshit. And then. Or then you can take those exact same words and have it be, you know, I'm the founder of Company Z, and I'm sitting here in a fedora and a chainmail vest, and I'm going to now say the same exact words. And you're going to, you're going to buy it because only it's so human and so authentic. This crazy person is talking about their, uh, about their technology applications, and it must be true.

Speaker C: You know, I'm sort of thinking about that example. Like, let's say you have like the most authentic possible script that has like the most honesty that a company has ever had. And you have those two different presentations, maybe you get like the nerdiest, most camera shy engineer is like standing up there shaking and reading a piece of paper and barely able to do something. People are like, oh, this doesn't seem real. And then you've got the CEO in his chainmail shirt. It's almost like authenticity isn't real, real. Well, I mean, authenticity is in the presentation, right?

Speaker B: It's in the eye of the beholden.

Speaker C: It's perceived.

Speaker A: I mean, I think the artifact is. The artifact is one thing. I mean, authenticity is, like you said, it does not exist. It's not, it's not measurable. It is, it is a ascertainment of the audience. Right? But, uh, but a, uh, if the overwhelming amount of your audience is like, wow, they are speaking true, then that's going to help you in the marketplace. And people are just like, well, we know that Microsoft is going to say that all of their products are the best for every possible thing. So it's my job to discern which product, what SharePoint's actually good for. Answer.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Say it again.

Speaker C: I'm imagining like these blog posts that start off, off with like introducing Microsoft Word. It is terrible at spreadsheets, but it can write a paragraph,

Speaker A: start somewhere.

Speaker B: I would just dovetail off what Joel was saying. There is, I think authenticity dovetails off or excuse me, is built on a foundation of truth. And so, uh, even if the product by which you convey authenticity is built by professionals and worked over, you know, very carefully, you're coming from a place of truth. And if you're doing, I mean, I think that's why some companies succeed and some fail. If you're starting from a position of bullshit and you are purposefully going, well, we have this weakness, but we're just not going to talk about it and we're going to pretend it doesn't exist and we're going to build our entire message on a foundation of lies, then you're going to struggle to be authentic. But if you have a solution that works for a certain, you know, for a target market, and you identify that target successfully and can convey the truth about your solution or your technology, then you've got a shot.

Speaker A: I now have a reason for people to be authentic, which is from Carl's idea of truth. Authenticity is the bridge to trust.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And for these, for our clients, they need to establish trust in order to get somebody to buy into their service. And so, yes, Authenticity. Bridge from truth to trust.

Speaker B: We might want to put that on our website.

Speaker C: We should put that on the website. I think that's a very good. It's a pretty good way to wrap up our first topic. So just one final question.

Speaker B: Okay, sorry.

Speaker C: Well, we haven't gone over time yet.

Speaker B: How the fuck would I know?

Speaker C: Well, I know I'm the only one. This is like soccer. Okay,

Speaker B: okay.

Speaker C: So, Joel, if, uh, if authenticity were measurable and it had an SI unit, what would the SI unit for authenticity be?

Speaker A: What would it be measured? And you mean am I creating a new one or am I using it?

Speaker C: You're creating a new one? Yeah. You're creating a new one.

Speaker A: A new one. Oh, okay. Interesting. It'd be the argon.

Speaker C: The argon.

Speaker A: The argon. Very stable. Totally fleshy.

Speaker C: For our next surprise topic, uh, we're going to. We're gonna head over to When I Go on Dates.

Speaker A: When I go on dates, it's measured in kilo argons.

Speaker B: Kilo argons.

Speaker C: Right. And now our surprise guest. All of Joel's exes

Speaker B: measured in the tears of a clown.

Speaker C: Uh, for our next surprise guest, uh, we are going to head over to the stinky end of the ship to visit the slot buckets and see what Carl has for us.

Speaker B: Carl, Surprise us. I'm going to surprise you. I can't do it in one word the way Mr. Barker did, but I think it'll be a fun one nonetheless. I want to talk about the state of content marketing as viewed through the lenses of our individual, um, social media feeds. Because, specifically, LinkedIn. I don't know how much you're still on it, Eric, but it is something that Joel and I are on every day. And I recognize that each and every one of us has a different view of the world, a different digital view of the world that's been curated for us by the machines. And I would just like to talk about what each of us are seeing on a B2B content front on our feeds and assess kind of what. What the state of play is.

Speaker C: I will say that I totally forgot about checking LinkedIn, and I have not been on LinkedIn in, like, two months.

Speaker A: Wow. What about your other social media feeds, though?

Speaker C: Yeah, you know, well, so I was thinking about that as Carl was talking. So I'm on Mastodon, which is notoriously free of any sort of, like, algorithmic thing. Like, you know, you pick hashtags and people to follow, and they just show up in order. And, um, I don't follow. There aren't A whole lot of uh, content markety type feeds to follow on Mastodon. But every once in a while some does get in and it always really shocks me. Like it stands out so distinctly from the rest of the crowd, you know, like, you know, people talking about problems with their computers or people talking about their vacation or posting pictures of cats. And then all of a sudden there's something about like, oh, we have this new release of our software, it's blah, blah, blah, blah blah, Go click and check it out. It's, it's amazing, et cetera, et cetera. And it's always just sort of like, oh, oh, I forgot that could happen. Not uh, that I'm offended by it, but I'm, it's always just kind of a shock. So I have to say like when it comes to social media feeds and content marketing, I haven't really been seeing much of it.

Speaker B: That makes me want to add a little bit to my uh, uh, to my topic idea, which is uh, when I say what's on the feed, I also kind of am talking about where the feed leads you. And so what I was speaking to kind of is I follow, I experience digitally through the people who follow me on LinkedIn or connected to me on LinkedIn and the people that I've, and the people and companies that I follow. And so by that I mean I am going and sampling their content. I will go to their website, I will read their case studies or their technical papers or their blog. And it's across a wide variety of, you know, because we've done a lot of different kinds of work for a lot of different kinds of companies over the last 10 years. And so I'm able to sample a lot of different industries and verticals. And the reason I brought this up is because I'm seeing a lot of sameness. Kind of regardless of what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve. Every website looks the same, all the blogs are kind of the same. Now I'm seeing a lot of sameness. Whether you, whether you're trying to sell circuit board assemblies or you know, the late, you know, the latest AI powered this or that and everything visually looks the same. The content looks the same. The testimonial videos, whether it's for a, uh, near shoring staffing firm or somebody selling a technology application for biomed, that's what I'm seeing. So I'm kind of curious if you guys are seeing that too or if I'm just imagining it.

Speaker C: Yeah, I was just thinking about content that I have purposely engaged with instead of sort of looking at it as the feedback. Um, so, like, software that I use, companies, uh, that I kind of follow. Um, and then I was sort of thinking we did encounter a lot of marketing content when we went to that trade, uh, show. Yeah, the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology association or whatever.

Speaker B: That's correct, yes. Yes.

Speaker C: And, yeah, I guess a lot of the material was the same, but it didn't seem like it was. I mean, it kind of, uh, I guess I feel like a lot of that always is the same. It's something that we've complained about in the past, about how it's really, really difficult to craft a voice that is unique, that makes it through, uh, rounds and rounds of reviews.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's more natural to see sameness within an industry. Um, and we were in a hall with everybody kind of supporting or part of the same industry. I'm at it kind of as I'm seeing sameness on. On. In wildly different industries and m. And that's. That's where I'm kind of like, wow, how is that happening? And it makes me think about, like, when we've done work for clients in the past where we have tried to make it different. You know, there was one very famous client where we spent a better part of a couple of years trying to make content different and exciting and leading edge, and we were always beaten into making it bland. And, um, you know, rather m. The same. You know, just very corporate speak. And then a new person came on board to that client, go, God, you guys are writing a bunch of bland shit. And we're like, well, you've been telling us to write bland shit for the last two years, you know, and so that's that. That's why I bring it up. So I'm curious to hear what Joel's. Joel's, you've been doing a wonderful job of listening. Um, I am deeply interested in hearing your, uh, thoughts before the toilet flushes.

Speaker A: Great topic. I agree that you're starting to see that sameness. And I think that in terms of seeing it in that social media feed, where you're able to see things that are adjacent to each other that are not necessarily of an industry, and then, like, you were talking about, kind of follow them, uh, is indicating what we're seeing in social media across all, um, arenas, which is algorithms create sameness. Um, algorithms teach people best practices. Those best practices are sameness. No social media platform is going to give away anything for free now. So it's all really pay to Be successful. It's not pay to play. You can play all you want, but you can't win unless you pay them. Um, and as a result, the methods of creating engagement look the same. Um, and then people using the same tools because, you know, they're using the same, um, captioning applications, same fonts, you know, and it is dull. Um, and it's funny, I think that calling back to the authenticity thing is like, that doesn't look authentic if everybody comes out that way. It's hard for me to believe that you're doing anything except just delivering a capsule of information, hoping that I'm currently so desperate for it that I will trust you, even though you've given me no reason to trust you.

Speaker B: So this morning, as I was trying to conjure a topic, I actually found myself. I won't. I don't want to out people on my feed or stuff like that, but I do it now. I went. I went into the. To the website and to consume content of a company in Fintech. And then I did the same thing for a company in. We'll just call it manufacturing. And they were using. So we're talking wildly different audiences, wildly different offerings. One, the websites looked the same. I mean, just like fonts, colors. I mean, not colors, but you get where I'm at it. But I was fighting the same keywords. I was suddenly going, wow, you are using the same keywords. And that was interesting to me.

Speaker A: Yeah. On social media, the one thing that I'm seeing that people are doing and I recommended a person to you today, Stephen Klein, um, is personalities. Uh, and it's funny because there's a sameness to how they present themselves as well. It's the long LinkedIn post that starts out with a controversial statement, and then the phrase hear me out, and then you got to click the more button to go down there. And I feel even, you know, it's like, it.

Speaker C: Hold on. Isn't that what we're doing now? Authenticity? Hear me out. It's true.

Speaker A: But I have to overcome the fact that I know that somebody is following a formula in order to get my attention. In order to be willing to click the more button, it has to be so much better. I pass by a lot of those because I'm like, I will not be exploited by your exploitation of the algorithm. And maybe that might be me alone. Other people may just be like, oh, I understand there's a format here. Or maybe they don't, and they click on things that they like.

Speaker B: But, well, you hit on a good Spot with ah, ah, personality as, as a way to differentiate from the sameness, which is also. Your personality is authentic. I, I'm thinking of a specific client of ours who's a, ah, a big personality, we'll just say. And that's how he's able to differentiate his company from others, is his presence as a human being. And uh, it, uh, works, you know, it, it works.

Speaker C: So, you know, I, I know that we've spread this message in the past in previous episodes, like, let your brand, let your marketing have some unique voice. Like, let. Let it be different that people, People just don't do it. Yeah, I think it takes some guts.

Speaker A: You're right. It does. It does. If somebody. It's three people in a meeting and uh, and one guy is like, here's what somebody at this other organization is doing and it's working, and somebody else is like, here's a wacky idea.

Speaker C: Let's do that.

Speaker A: Let's do that. No, they're gonna do the one that's working. So that's where the sameness comes from.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, good point. Now you're right.

Speaker A: And for me, uh, maybe the, Maybe the unique. Uniqueness needs to be like a little pepper shaken on top of that. Like a little bit like. Okay, we're gonna do best practices, and then we're gonna do a little wacky thing. You know, there's a clown slinking by in the background while the CPU is

Speaker C: talking about a cartoon mascot. Yeah,

Speaker A: it's worth trying a homicidal cartoon mascot with a different sort of bloody murder weapon in its hands every time.

Speaker C: Or clippy.

Speaker A: Or clippy.

Speaker B: I think if the VC money's about to run out, it's time to bring out the homicidal clock clown. I mean, you know, you might as well go for it at that point.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay. Okay, I think it's probably about time to wrap up this topic. So, Carl, I think that my question for you is the next LinkedIn post that you write for Lion's Way. Um, what are you going to do to make it spicy?

Speaker B: Well, I can't use swear words, so I might do a. I might write a poem. I mean, I'm not a poet like Joel is, of course, but I can do haikus, and I might do a haiku about a homicide homicidal mascot.

Speaker C: Excellent. Approved.

Speaker B: Okay, I'll do it. Out with the slop bucket.

Speaker A: Eric, what's.

Speaker B: What are you gonna get from, um, you.

Speaker C: My surprise topic is that that wonderful feeling, uh, that sometimes is still a great surprise where you come Across a feeling field of skills and learning that you had no idea even existed. And here's what happened. Um, I'd been wanting to get into video editing, um, for a while, and I finally got a free gaming laptop with a GPU from a friend. So I spent about a week learning how to use DaVinci Resolve. And that involved going through like, ah, I'm using finger quotes on this, like a master class on YouTube where I was watching this tutorial and going through and learning all the parts the of. Of it. Um, and a lot of it was stuff like, okay, cool, I'm glad I'm learning how to do this part. And then he. And then when it started to get into like the last, you know, half of the class, we dove into all these things having to do with video and video editing that were concepts completely alien to me. And I was like, oh, shit, I never even realized that you had to think about this. Oh, shit. I didn't realize that this is a thing that you did think about, you know, just. And as I was going through it, I mean, I was thrilled. I love having that experience. But I also was so surprised. Like, it just sort of came out of nowhere. And of course I should have assumed. I should have assumed that that would happen. It happens every time you get into a new topic. But I was just kind of thinking about how delightful that is and how that's actually something that we run into when we start writing for a new client frequently, especially if they're in like, emerging technologies, because we might think we know what we're doing and when we get into it, and then once we get there, we're like, oh, this is completely different. Um, and I feel like we almost always do a really good job of navigating that, um, I don't know, the precipice of ignorance. That's not a good name for it. How about the ignorance jump scare? Where you're kind of going along, you think you know what's going on, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, shit, I'm a moron.

Speaker A: Well, we had that this morning.

Speaker B: Yes, yes, I stepped on the rake of ignorance.

Speaker C: Um, the rake of ignorance. That's it.

Speaker A: This is presient of you, Eric. Absolutely.

Speaker B: Both Joel and I had misinterpreted a key definition of a foundational element of a. Of a product offering for a client we've had for many years.

Speaker A: It's a word that's used for two different things in almost exactly the same context.

Speaker B: So yes, one of the things is a widely known concept. And the other is one that's known by very, very few. Uh, and I am not one of those people, obviously, hence the foray into the rake of ignorance. But, um, so this morning we did not avoid that. But. But, um. Uh, yeah, that's a really good point. I think we do a really good job of displaying just enough knowledge to make people trust us, but we don't attempt to portray ourselves as more knowledgeable than we really are because we're learning as we do it. So it's like, I'm learning, but I've got to make people understand that I'm not an idiot. So, you know.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Show them what you know and keep learning. And that seems to work with clients.

Speaker C: And the problem with the, with, with the rake of ignorance, when you do come across it with a new client or in a new field, when we're writing about something that we haven't written about before, is you don't. You have to evaluate if that rake of ignorance, which is a term I'm going to keep using forever, if it's. If it's like something that needs to be explained to the audience, or if in explaining to the audience, we're talking down to them. Them. Right. Like that's one of the things. You don't want to explain the field to the expert, but sometimes there are things in the field that the experts don't know yet. And you need to know if. Which rake, that is if you're stepping at the rake at the very entrance of the yard or if the rake in the middle of the yard.

Speaker A: Yes. Can be the interlocutor. Um, apologize for my bad emphasis there.

Speaker C: That's cool. Was that, that was a Borg. Right.

Speaker A: Who stands interlocutor of board stands, you know, for the learner. But we have to rely upon our subject matter experts and our marketing people to be like, you know, no, everybody knows that. Or something like that. Kubernetes is an orchestration platform for Docker. Like, we don't need to say that for most buying audiences.

Speaker C: And you don't ever say that again because Kubernetes doesn't use Docker anymore. It tries to. Oh, shit.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: For containers. See? Yeah.

Speaker A: It's an orchestration platform for containerization containers.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I don't understand that. But, um, anyway, I do love that challenge and it's like your story made me think about, like when you get into that. I don't know how to ask you this question properly, but like, the things that were unexpected.

Speaker C: Uh-huh.

Speaker A: Was It. I'm just going to ask the leading question. That's my suspicion. Was it a question of something is more of a priority than you thought it was to be successful, or was it a question of tolerances were different than you thought they needed to be?

Speaker C: I, um, think it was more, uh, the priority thing. It was kind of, um, something that. It was sort of. It was sort of like an area, uh, one of the big ones, of color correction in video. Like, color correction is huge. You don't release a video without doing color correction on it. I had no idea. I didn't even know. I mean, I didn't even know that I would be doing anything about color correction ever. It never crossed my mind. All of a sudden, I was dumped into this world of, like, color spaces and different cameras and loading things that I. And I don't even know how to talk about it yet. Right. Like, it's so new and weird. I'm kind of like, I don't understand. I'll tweet, I'll hit this button, and maybe it'll do everything right for me.

Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker A: I find that to be very weird about, like, learning a new thing where you're. Because you're kind of like, oh, that's not like, I'm going to skip that chapter. People are like, you'll regret it.

Speaker C: I mean, you can't. You can't skip that chapter. You got to do it. Yeah.

Speaker B: I want everyone to know that I did post earlier. During this podcast, I made a LinkedIn post referring to the wake of ignorance.

Speaker C: Excellent. It is ours now. We have solidified it in the, uh, Schreiben Zeitgeist.

Speaker B: Excellent.

Speaker A: Yes. We could do a very authentic casual video about the Rake of Ignorance.

Speaker C: Yes. Yes.

Speaker B: The Schreiben Zeitgeist.

Speaker A: Yeah. So is. Is it. I mean, is it. I wonder if the Rake of Ignorance is something we could use. I think we do. Like, we use that idea when we're talking to audiences in that, like, um, once we figure out or make assessments as to what the audience wants and what they already know, like that Kubernetes uses Docker, um, then we can kind of like, show that we're amongst them. Right. Um, and that becomes a useful thing for our composition. But the fun stuff for us is usually, like, right now I'm learning about these really weird compression regimes. And it's very cool to me how that's happening.

Speaker C: You know, Algorithms. What's a compression regime?

Speaker A: Uh, well, it's. It's not just the algorithm.

Speaker B: It's.

Speaker A: It's going back and, and reassessing content and uh, columns and then like putting them into different groups over time.

Speaker B: That sounds horrible.

Speaker A: Check it out.

Speaker C: I don't understand.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll send you.

Speaker C: But I guess, you know, just uh, to tie everything together. If you step on the wrong rake of ignorance at the wrong time, you do destroy your. Any, any semblance of authenticity.

Speaker B: You might have, well, credibility. Yeah. And this might be a great way for us to build rapport with our clients. We can just, you know, early help us not step on the rake of ignorance. Please answer these questions because we've had recent clients who shall be named, remain nameless. A large company that makes things anyway, um, they would actually camouflage the rake of ignorance and try to lure us into stepping on it. And that's probably why their company is in the toilet. But that's another thing. So you know, don't, don't. If you encounter someone who camouflages the rake of ignorance, I think they are probably someone you should unfriend. Is probably, you know, do not camouflage

Speaker C: the rake of ignorance.

Speaker A: Well, it touches on so good.

Speaker B: I love it so much.

Speaker A: But it touches on a topic that I bring up all the time, which is like to be good at our job. Just saying, I don't know anything. Uh, tell me everything. Doesn't work. Well, um, that doing the work of developing some level of domain knowledge is really important to the work that we're doing. Which is fun because that's like the learning stuff that Eric is talking about. Kind of that initial part like, okay, I can, you know, these are things I actually wanted to learn and so I've learned those. But, but definitely you want to come into that new domain with a little bit of humility. You know, after you've done that work and you're actually talking to a subject matter expert. Because otherwise your right draft, first draft will have rake of ignorance prints all over.

Speaker C: Mhm. Mhm. Looks like a big vertical line right in the middle of your face.

Speaker A: Right in the middle of your forehead.

Speaker B: Yeah, don't want that. You don't want that. No, no, no, no. So m. I think, I think, I think we've beaten the rake of ignorance to death. Now it might be time to flush that turn down.

Speaker A: Yeah. Great topic, Eric. Thank you.

Speaker C: I'm not sure that I have anything more to add about the topic. I do have another example of, uh, I'm not sure if this is necessarily rake of ignorance stuff or just something really annoying about the industry, but the smt, A conference that I, that Carl and I went to. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it until like the day before. Assuming that SMT was surface mount technologies, which is an important part of electronics manufacturing, where you have the little itty bitty chips and they go on the surface of the boards and they've got like these pick and place machines that do it all automatically and these soldering robots and all that shit. Uh, and we've worked for people who do SMT assembly, uh, lines and smtp, smt, um, monitoring and all that kind of stuff. So I was kind of like, okay, cool, smt. I love that. Maybe I'm gonna get to see some cool machines in operation. But SMT also stands for semiconductor manufacturing

Speaker B: technology,

Speaker C: which definitely uses a lot of smt, but it is not.

Speaker A: Yeah, SMT is a subset of smt.

Speaker B: There were definitely people at that show who did surface mounting technology.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I talked to some SMT people.

Speaker B: Yeah, that big.

Speaker C: Also I talked to some SMT people.

Speaker A: So my question for you to wrap this up is, uh, what domain will you next stumble into and bruise your forehead upon the rake?

Speaker C: It's difficult to predict, uh, the video. I'm still in the middle of learning how to do video editing. Um, so I suspect that I still have a yard of indeterminate size filled with a non zero number of rakes for me to step on. Um, so I think it's going to be there for a little while. I have some projects that I'm working on that involve audio editing and, uh, kind of like highly processed podcast stuff. But I've already done that before, so I think I know the rakes and I know what parts I'm bad at and what parts I'm good at, and what parts take too much time, etc. But in video editing, I am, um, I am just a babe in a city full of thieves.

Speaker A: I will send you a catcher's mask, unless you would prefer a hockey mask. Which would you prefer?

Speaker C: I think a hockey mask would be more fun because, you know, like, intimidating Jason 40s.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Versus the raking of ignorance.

Speaker A: Maybe what we should do is whenever we do video calls kickoffs with clients, in order to signify that we're ready for the rake of ignorance, we should all wear hockey masks.

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. That's all of our clients will love that.

Speaker A: They'll get it immediately.

Speaker B: I'm gonna let Eric flush first. Then. I have a suggestion for how we wrap this up. I think we are on the cusp of a new gimmick. Um, for The Smelly Pirate content creation show, where we come with three. We'll do something different each time. It'll be come with three things. Each of us will bring something, uh, to the event and we'll discuss each of the three. And at the end, we need to vote on which was the best, um, topic.

Speaker A: And then we all just vote for our own and it's a tie every time.

Speaker B: I'm not going to vote for my own. So we know that we're going to get a winner.

Speaker C: I'm not voting for Carls.

Speaker A: I got a 50% chance.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, I think we should all. I think we should all vote on what we thought was the best topic today, and then we declare that topic the greatest topic of all time.

Speaker C: That's how we should do it. I think we should look at the. I think we should instead, because I think that what we discovered is that we each brought a topic, uh, that was a surprise to everybody else, but they all kind of tied together. Right. Like, Carl, you talked about the sameness in social media posts, which Joel's topic of authenticity helps solve. Right. If you're being authentic, you don't sound exactly the same as everybody else. Uh, and then at the same time, bringing up the, uh, surprise. Learning is something that helps us build, um, an authentic voice for, um, our clients to speak to their audience. It turns out that even though we all tried to surprise the others, all of our topics were kind of connected.

Speaker B: I like that, Eric. That's very nice. That is very kumbaya. I like that.

Speaker C: Was it authentic?

Speaker B: It was so authentic. It was so authentic. You missed the good. You avoided the rake. Good job.

Speaker C: I used the rake to smooth the rocks in the Zen garden.

Speaker A: Use the actual. The business end of the rake.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Wonderful.

Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, all right, so, well, to wrap everything up, I would encourage our listeners to subscribe to our podcast and also, uh, there will be a link in the show notes to do that and also to follow us on LinkedIn where, um, where we, where at least two of us regularly share our deepest and most, most profound thoughts. Or it's Carl.

Speaker B: I like pie.

Speaker C: Uh, so, so anyhow, uh, thank you for listening and Gar, we hope you

Speaker A: enjoyed enduring the Smelly Pirate content creation show brought to you by Lion's Way. I'd like to thank our producer, Eric Arneson, for making us, ah, all sound smarter in post. Please remember to tip your server and subscribe to this podcast on the platform of your choice. And be sure to visit lionswaycontent.com for all of your B2B marketing content needs.