Curiosity might kill cats but it can bring life to a blog.
One of the characteristics that I’ve observed many successful bloggers having is ‘curiosity’.
Wikipedia defines curiosity as:
“any natural inquisitive behaviour, evident by observation in many animal species, and is the emotional aspect of living beings that engenders exploration, investigation, and learning.”
Good bloggers are often curious about one or more of the following things:
- How things work in their field – curious bloggers are the type of people who don’t want to just know the news but want to work out how it applies to their lives (and the lives of their readers). They test new products. They try things in ways they were intended to be used but also in ways that they were not. They don’t just want to know that things work but why and how they work.
- Finding solutions for problems – they are not satisfied to let problems remain unsolved but are always looking for solutions to outstanding issues.
- How others in their niche do things – they are not only interested in things, products or news but are interested in people. They seek people in their niche out, they network, they share information, they observe other and they ask lots of questions about what others know and how they do things.
- Their niche – they keep a finger on the pulse of their niche and watch what other key figures are saying (and not saying). They gather information, analyse trends and take pride in being in the know.
- How to present things differently – curious bloggers are not satisfied with regurgitating news or having a blog that is like every other blog in their niche. They actively look for ways to present their content in interesting and creative ways. They are often innovative both in the features of their blog but in their writing.
- How principles in other fields might apply to theirs – curious bloggers often have a wide array of interests in different fields and are always looking to learn about how they can learn something from one that applies to another. Bringing together disconnected ideas and learning something new from them is a natural practice for curious bloggers.
- Digging beneath the surface to find the ‘real’ story – curious bloggers won’t accept ‘spin’ and are always digging deeper to get the real story or a scoop. They go beyond following RSS feeds and look for the inside word. These are the type of bloggers who dig around on manufacturers websites or forums looking for unannounced products. The result is that occasionally they get lucky and break big stories.
Tomorrow I’m going to take this idea of the ‘curious blogger’ into a ‘how to’ realm and will ask (and attempt to answer) the question of whether curiosity is a personality thing or whether it can be learned in How to be Curious.
