Which one would you prefer?
I asked the question a couple of days ago both on Twitter and in G+ and the responses where evenly split among the first two. The third was a suggestion voted in by the community on G+, namely being the inside scoop.
Most of us have an immediate gut reaction to dualistic kinds of questions -- yes and no, either/or, this or that, fight or flight.
Once we start defining the question in more specific terms, our likely choice crystallizes:
- giving news about gifts to children for Christmas
- getting new information about a deep tissue massage
- giving very bad news to a person you care about
- getting a controversial review in a prominent publication
When it comes to reviews, for example, is giving one easier than getting one? Does it depend on its nature? Maybe, partly on the nature of the person doing the giving? How about the one who's getting it? Does your answer change if we're talking about the review of your book vs. the review of your work?
If your answer was / is "it depends", you're thinking in more modern and contemporary terms: It's a choice we're called to make in different situations, at different times, with varying degrees of information at our fingertips.
The answer depends on your focus.
For example, this week, we talked about:
- best bang for the buck -- where an undefined question made me think about another question that is usually asked without definition
- top business trends -- where I pointed out that the other side of the trend coin is case studies. Which are trends seen in the rear view mirror
- trick or trade? -- where the things that scare business people the most are the same that hold the most opportunity for them
- 34 ways to spread your ideas with a blog -- where I concluded that with all its promise, blogging is no substitute for doing. It is a complement to it
- commerce and creativity -- where I said when you cannot make your social media programs work it means you don't know (yet) what the business trades
- Google draws content and sharing together -- where I pointed out that it's not just the seller's strategy we need to examine. We also need to question the buyer's strategy to do good trade
I'm fascinated by these kinds of questions because, more often than not, we live in a both/and world. It's the big ideas and the small gestures, vision and leadership and working in the background as supporting actor, moments of joy years in the making.
That's how you get to be the inside scoop.
Chocolate and pistachio for me. Who can tell me what those two towers mean?
[image courtesy of Wikipedia]