Monday, February 07, 2011

Withholding Information

My wife and I love to cook. Over the weekend, we discovered something about a famous chef that we thought was a little unusual: this chef's best recipes are in the books that he/she publishes; the recipes available (for free) on line are not anywhere near as good in quality. We both thought this was a really good way to trash your branding.

But then the thought occurred to me: do I do this with this blog? Give out better advice to paying clients than the free stuff available here? (And for that matter, do other bloggers?)

My first thought is no, although the longer I think about it, the more I temper it. Certainly if I do water down the information here, it is not deliberate; it is not an effort to withhold information with the thought that if you want to get it all, you have to pay up. Rather, I think it is a compromise to the restraints of the media. Blogs have only limited space for conveying information, and I expect that readers have only a short time period to read any particular post. I know I do. Long diatribes that require hitting the vertical scroll bar more than once scare me off (particularly if I'm at work) and so I suspect it is the same for others. I try and portray the information accurately, but completely?, well that is just not going to happen.

I think (hope) that most of you can appreciate the difference. A chef publishing second rate recipe is totally different, as a proper recipe could be published in just as easily as the diminished one. Scientific completeness? Even entire books about a subject are never complete, but not by choice.

No comments: