Building in Public? Or Learning in Public?

We’ve likely all heard of ‘building in public’. Starting an online business and sharing the journey on social media. Sharing revenue updates or download numbers. Getting support and encouragement from the online community.

Building is important. Sharing the things we have accomplished can be an invaluable part of the entrepreneurs journey. The feedback and affirmation can give them the motivation to keep going, especially when at their toughest points.

But the idea of building suggests that we already have the skills nailed down. Just as a literal builder already knows how to lay a brick before he starts the project.

However, a lot of us feel that we don’t have the skills, knowledge, or paper qualifications to be advising others in a particular field or have the audacity to start a content creation business from scratch. After all we’ve not got that MBA. But does that really matter?

I think we should reframe this ‘Building in Public’ to ‘Learning in Public’.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be an ivy league professional with 15 master’s degrees to enrich and add value to the lives of others.

Even a relative beginner can teach others. In fact, it’s sometime better to be a beginner teaching another beginner, rather than an expert. That’s not a criticism, just a recognised problem. It’s called the curse of knowledge. An expert can unconsciously assume that we all know what he has in mind, the mental pictures, and analogies that he has lived with for years.

Sometime genuine experts struggle to build or teach in public. Why? They can’t communicate their message clearly and effectively. Whereas a beginner can more easily relate to a fellow beginner. And as they have recently been in their students’ shoes can convey their ideas in a more coherent and down to earth way.

I’m not recommending being a total novice. Just an advanced beginner. Then when you’re proficient you can teach the advanced beginner. Once you’re an expert then you can teach the proficient. At whatever stage of development we are in we can add value to others.

I was listening to “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman today. (Wow, I can’t recommend that book enough. I think I will be referencing it in the coming weeks.) Burkeman relates a great quote from the author Richard Bach: “You teach best what you most need to learn.”

And that’s the very essence of learning in public. Build your blog, tweets, podcast, or YouTube channel around what you have learned that day/week/month. You will take your audience with you and simultaneously build in public. Win. Win.

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