That’s a project created by a guy named Erick Muller.
It’s really easy to read and listen to stuff and be done with it. Thoughts roll around in your brain and you hope it made you smarter. But playing with those thoughts in a public forum is so much more valuable!
It helps crystallize the learning, clarify the thinking, and creates a ton of goodwill and unforeseen benefits. I did a challenge one month where I wanted to write 20 Amazon book reviews for books I’d read and enjoyed over the years. I spent a few minutes each day writing a short review instead of just letting my thoughts on the book live in my head.
It felt good, I felt productive, I remembered things from the books again, it prompted me to give some books to some people, and something else happened. I started to get new authors emailing me every so often and offering free early copies of their books. They had seen I’d done a decent number of reviews in similar genres, and decided to see if I’d help get theirs some love. In fact, a few months ago a publisher sent me a brand new copy of Stephen Landsburg’s newest econ book for free with a nice note saying I might enjoy it. I can only speculate that they pulled a list of people who had reviewed maybe five or more econ books on Amazon or had a certain number of “helpful” ratings and sent them a copy.
What’s cool about Erick’s project, besides the fact that it shows a lot of initiative, curiosity, humility, and eagerness to experiment and learn new things, is the way you can sort the content consumed. I thought the “People” tab was interesting (not only because I was on it…but partially;-). It’s a way to spot patterns you may not consciously notice. It might turn out that you find yourself consuming stuff by a person a lot more than you thought. This could prompt you to dive deeper into their work, or Tweet at them, or see what other people are in their orbit you might like. You get to analyze your own big data and make your own “You might also like” recommendations, instead of trusting Amazon or Facebook or Google to find the good stuff.
You’re already doing and learning interesting stuff. Take a few minutes to think about some ways you might share those learnings out loud!