Listening

I have been doing a lot of thinking about listening lately. Both literal and figurative. It seems to me that we don’t do very much of it. Neither literally nor figuratively.

That is not (only) because there is little worth listening to … the signal-to-noise ratio on the internet continues its decay. Its accelerating decay – which just means that everybody shouts louder to be ignored by more people.

But there are things worth hearing; worth listening to. Even on the internet.

Finding them is proving to be more and more challenging, but that is where aggregators and curators come in … find one whose taste mirrors your own and you will have a better experience online.

Importantly, from a marketing perspective, according to Seth Godin (among others), listening is a crucial skill. In fact, it is more important to listen well than to shout – no matter how eloquently – into the maelstrom that is the contemporary internet. If you listen well to the people that you hope to serve then you will know what problems they need to have solved. You will also know what they have tried before and what has worked and what has not. You will know better what to offer and what they will be willing to accept. And how they will value your offer.

Interesting, then, is the fact that most of us have never been taught to listen well. We aim to fix that.

More anon …