How to (selfishly) make great educational content | #3
What makes great educational content? Questions to figure out which type of great the content should be, and some formats I'll be experimenting with.
In this 3rd edition of The Pole:
What makes great educational content?
Two questions I ask myself to figure out which market my content will be for
Video formats I'll be experimenting with
—
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What makes great educational content?
In the previous edition, I outlined my goal. To
create educational content (math, comp sci, finance)
systematically
in a way that doesn't feel like work.
From this goal I can derive 3 measurements:
how great is my educational content?
how great is my system?
to what degree does this feel like work?
The most sensible approach would be to optimize those in ascending order (1 → 2 → 3):
In other words, if educational content is a product, then
pick a market and then make content that solves their problem excellently,
fine-tune a process for systematically solving their problem(s), and
somehow make yourself enjoy this system.
It's not obvious to me that, once I've done 1 and 2, I can optimize for enjoyment. I suppose the conventional advice is to hire out the parts you don't like once you’re profitable... but, what if you don't want to manage people?
Or, what if you don’t care to spend a few years making yourself do things you don’t want to do?
Since I am selfish, finicky artist, I chose the stubborn approach, which is optimizing in the opposite order:
do what I enjoy (e.g. follow my curiosity)
systematize this joyful process
hopefully at this point I've found a market, if not, adjust content to solve the problems of the nearest market
Fortunately, I enjoy a lot of things. Following my curiosity often means seeing something on social media and rabbit-holing about it.
So, given that
what I enjoy is pretty flexible, and
I'm more motivated if I know there are people waiting at the finish line that would find it valuable,
it makes sense to me to add a dash of sensibility. Which means asking myself:
What makes great educational content?
Here's my attempt to answer that without context:
Great educational content is efficient and orderly, which means
clear: the consumer doesn't have to spend extra time figuring out what you mean
tailored to the consumer's needs: the consumer doesn't have to spend time skipping through parts of your content they don't care about
marketed appropriately: the consumer doesn't have to spend time figuring out if they should care about your content at a glance
But then again, great content can be inefficient and chaotic. The value can be in the journey, not the destination.
Thus, great educational content can also be:
unclear: it keeps you on your toes, keeps you thinking, keeps you engaged
tailored to the author’s vision: at first the consumer may not see the point, but then when everything connects in the end, they're like, Whoaaaa, dude
not marketed appropriately: it's serendipitous - they got what they didn’t know they wanted
Hence, there are many ways educational content can be great.
If you’re like me, your instinct might be to try and be great in multiple ways (e.g. my content will be clear AND breath-taking).
Fair enough! It is doable. There are talented creators who pull it off.
But, it’s hard. As a voracious consumer of content, I’ve seen a lot of content creators try to chase both rabbits and end up catching none.
I don't want to fall into that trap.
Two questions I ask myself to figure out which market my content will be for
I plan on being deliberate about the way my educational content will be great, using this framework:
I’m imagining each of these quadrants as markets, and for any piece of content I create, I’m going to ask myself two questions to figure out which market the content will be for:
Am I creating this content for my own utility (tutorials, explanations), or for the audience (how-to guides, references)?
Selfishly, I enjoy walking people through problems I’ve already solved (tutorials) and explaining things (explanations). My primary audience for the tutorials and explanations I make is myself, 5 to 10 years from now, when I’m thinking, wait… how does this work again?
But if I’m not making content for me, it’s going to be for others. And if it’s going to be for others, it better solve their problem. And typically, that means content on how to solve a problem (how-to guides) or content about a potential solution (references).
That’s not to say there is no market for tutorials and explanations. I’m just labeling tutorials and explanations as a non-business creative outlet. I’m not expecting them to have an ROI.
Is whoever’s consuming this content primarily trying to solve a problem (tutorials, how-to guides) or develop an understanding (explanations, references)?
Roughly, this question helps me decide: should I only give enough details to solve the problem?
If I’m trying to solve a problem, I don’t care about the why or how. At least, not yet. I just want it solved.
I’ve consumed a lot of content where the author was going on and on about something when I’m thinking
yeah but what do you do next??
or
ok so what’s the solution my guy??
AND THEY’RE JUST TAKING THEIR SWEET TIME. ARGH.
On the other hand, I’ve followed how-to guides and either
I solved the problem… Now, I want to peek under the hood. Why did that work? How did that work? But the why and how are nowhere to be found. Damn. I wish there was an explanatory follow-up! Or
I’m on e.g. step 7 and… crap - it doesn’t work. I sure wish I knew why so I could make an educated guess at a different step.
So, it depends.
I just need to decide up-front:
Is this for me or for others?
Is this helping solve a problem?
And then market it appropriately.
I might not be able to get the exact audience in advance, but at least I can nail the problem it solves.
Formats to experiment with
These are some format ideas I'm excited about:
x explained with different time constraints
e.g. how does chatGPT work in 1 minute, in 5 min, in 30 min, in 1 hour, in 5 hours
note: this is different than x explained at 5 different levels of expertise - the audience is always the same: a reasonably curious, engaged individual. The distinction is: how much attention span does the individual want to lend?
theoretically, hopefully, they’ll start with the 1 minute content, it’ll create curiosity, they’ll go to the 5 minute, get even more curious, rinse-and-repeat until… muahahahahaha, now you’re in this with me
how-to guide, followed by explanation
the frame I have here is "come for the solution to your problem, stay for the why and how” - let’s nerd out about it once you've solved it
a whiteboard explanation series for folks with big screens
I'm really excited about this one
the idea is:
technical explanations are really heavy on cognitive load requirements, particularly working memory and short term memory
to combat this, it helps if the content is persistent (e.g. if you’re like, wait, what’s X again? it’s still on the screen)
but this requires a lot of screen real estate - especially things with lots of technical detail
to combat THAT, what if we just assumed the screen was really big?
yeah it might be messy at the end but… you know how even if your room is dirty, you can still find things?
some kind of Tik Tok format
no real content ideas here, but I know that I personally can scroll through Tik Tok for hours - so I'd be crazy to not consider this medium
Anyhow, that’s all for this newsletter!
IMO "I’m just labeling tutorials and explanations as a non-business creative outlet. I’m not expecting them to have an ROI." is a mistake - there is probably plenty of market value for the right tutorials/explanations, I wouldn't discount them just because they're what you enjoy doing the most. I've heard you explain things, you're good at it ;)