We're talking with Robin Good about curation
Robin, I love your series of articles
I highly recommend them
I just wanted to get directly from you
a few thoughts about curation online
starting with
what do you think the importance
in the place of curation is,
for anybody who's online?
I think, we could see this way
We reach somehow the limit of
understanding and making sense
of information just by going out
to Google, typing out a query
and getting a listing of things
that could be relevant to us.
I think, this is like being hungry
and going to McDonalds,
like having fast food information
but I want something more
like when I go to a restaurant
I can choose the type of restaurant,
the type of food, the quality, the level,
the type of customer service
and so on, so
I am looking for a new level of
accessing information whereby
I'm not just trying to list and rank
information but then trying to
make sense of information.
This is what people want more and more
because one article by itself or a link,
or a resource, or a video, sometimes
it's just a little opening hole
into understanding that topic
while if there was some kind of
intermediate layer, whether done by
an algorithm or by people contributing
and working with an algorithm to
collect things that make sense on
a certain topic.
I think we would be in a position
to inform and learn much faster
and much better than we can do now.
What qualities do you think
a curator ought to have?
Well, it's got to be somewhat of a very
curious person and a passionate person
in area where you want to curate.
I don't think you can just go about
curating a topic because you wake up
and that's something you want to do.
Well, you certainly can and gain confidence
within time, but it would be best that
you go and curate something that you're
already very passionate about,
that you've been exposed to so that
you have some sincerity, some antennas
that allow you to understand what is good,
what is better, because then it becomes
a point of who are you doing this for.
Are you just an artist painting something
for yourself or you're creating something
for a specific audience that's trying to
intercept a specific need and resolve it
with that channel of information.
I would think that knowing the audience
and being an expert on the topic help
someone curate whatever type of
information; I see them as a disposal
that I think are the key elements, then,
you got to be very transparent and
give full credit to whomever you're
gathering in and expose, actually,
the best qualities of these sources
and people, and add something of your own
that is the ultimate quality of the curator,
like DJ, I mean, what's the difference
between putting a mix tape and a live DJ?
I think those