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 same qualities apply
somewhat to a content curator,
that is the ability to listen closely to
what type of audience at the moment
he's serving and then providing
that context of the type of information
he or she is collecting make sense to them
so you may have to change titles,
you may have to change descriptions,
images, order, how you juxtapose things
but you have to customize the flow
for the purpose theme and public
you're doing that for.
So 'who you are' should come through,
to some degree, your sensibility and
your point of view, not be completely
suppressed when you're curating.
There may be different instances
and situations and business why is
pure research and information activities.
It may vary, I wouldn't be so sure
that all the time you would have to
bring out your personality but there is
no way that you cannot somehow stand
in some positions so it would be a
generic position, it may be a more
defined position for those who take
political stances or research things where
there are opposing views but in
getting there, you may be a great curator
by just standing out for your position
or maybe even a better curator by curating
all the positions that are out there
and allowing people to discover which one
fits best for them, I mean,
both of them are valid to me.
Alright, what is your advice to people
about how to go about this?
I know you have a very detailed workflow,
someone wants to go ahead and start
curating and they've got a passion for
a subject and some knowledge about it,
how would they go about it?
The first thing you want to do is to
collect your sources, the places where
you're going to gather information.
You want to start some basics so
these may be some blogs,
some video channels,
some twitter personalities,
fun pages, anything especially that is
capable of producing