Become a Knowledge Curator

The holiday season was upon us (... not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse), and I found myself with a couple of free hours (a rare occurrence), trying to find anything on Internet that would grab (or at least, retain) my attention. 

At first, it seemed that I did not know what I was looking for. Search after search on YouTube did not yield anything satisfactory. However, as I continued punching the keyboard to enter new and improved search words, I noticed that I gravitated to self-improvement and education videos on topics away from my profession. I was looking for financial advice, health stories, or cool life philosophies – lessons that were never taught in my mandatory school years. However, at my current "ripe" age, I had finally realized that these skipped lessons were the crucial ones. Even today the schools neglect these topics; therefore, most of us are left to chance events to teach us how to navigate life and avoid its traps. 

The human mind is inquisitive; however, it is currently challenged by a formidable match – the informational tsunami of modern progress. A tremendous amount of information – from this on simple homesteading tasks to data on exacting neurosurgeries and most complicated calculations – is growing to gigantic proportions. The consequences of acquiring this collective knowledge are beyond our imagination. But in order to effectively assimilate the informational content, we need to start collecting, cataloging and curating the knowledge.

By the way - no, I have not just discovered the Internet, and yes – I have used Wikipedia. And yes, I also know about Khan Academy, I have watched enough of its videos to know that although useful, sometimes by the time the presenter draws an image/schematic/picture, I could watch another brief informational video on the same topic. What I seek is highly effective visual application of curated knowledge. I would like to see the best of the best summarize their knowledge on different topics in the shortest and clearest form and shape.

As I was writing this last sentence, it occurred to me that such website/movement might already exist. This is how I discovered the Video Encyclopedia, a resource of one- to three-minute videos. I find this type of approach refreshing, since I am working in a field where everyone is already drowning in information. Frequently the information is redundant, irrelevant, incoherent, incorrect, and delivered ineffectively. If you find that a three-minute video is too short for a concept, consider a sequence of "satellite" short videos that allows someone to “drill down and deeper”. However, frequently three minutes are sufficient to present a general concept. See the schematic below - it summarizes the idea.




I believe that the future belongs to the Knowledge Curators – those who will crunch any concept into brief videos. These videos or “modules of knowledge” will be the building blocks of any future general and specialized education. This is how the collective knowledge will create the most awesome School of Life.
 
If you are one of these people who have knowledge to share, start collecting, curating, and cataloging, create up to three-minute videos, and upload. A great example of short videos that summarize even complicated clinical and research papers are these offered by New England Journal of Medicine.  

Once you start summarizing the knowledge you have, you may discover that this could be not only fulfilling, but also a lucrative process as well. Listen to this podcast by Nick Loper on a how helping nursing students turned out to be a great way of living.