How funny. I find myself intimidated just writing this comment. That said, this is an excellent post that quite accurately conveys the internal struggles and challenges of a newbie poster like me.
Though I’ve years and years of experience with brands, comms and strategy and have written, presented and engaged with boards, CEOs and rooms full of incredibly bright people, I’ve found that posting my thoughts on the EA forum is weirdly terrifying.
I’ve been trying to understand why for a few weeks now. As a member of a few other communities, in which I feel very comfortable, I thought it might be helpful to detail my insecurities here:
As a newcomer I get the sense that I accidentally wandered into a super cool group of super clever people discussing super clever things and that I wasn’t supposed to get the invite. Of course being me, I then went on to misread the invite and showed up in a clown costume honking a horn
I like to write. But I write in a more personal and expressive style (much like this comment) and, like others, I find the writing style here is very complex, formal and intimidating. It’s not like my style, so I think maybe I shouldn’t post
Voluntarily offering my thoughts and ideas to be judged by very smart people isn’t my favorite thing to do so I’ve found I get stuck writing and editing in circles in order to sound clever instead of clear
My expertise is in the highly subjective areas of strategies, brands, messages, creative thinking and customer experiences which feels massively superficial compared to the big stuff people talk about in here
I suspect like many others, I’ve got an oversized fear of trolls, or of tripping on the outrage tripwire. I’m not saying trolls are here, just that outrage seems to be everywhere these days and a lot of us have learned to be hyper-cautious
I came into the EA shop looking for clever, rational people and communities with interests in social, communal, behavioral, public policy, creative design and systems based EA and found AI, BioRisk and Animal Welfare communities—which are all great, but again, I think I misread the invite
In my other groups I tend to respond really well to questions. I’ve got lots of thoughts and ideas of my own, but to answer a question feels a lot more helpful
Though I really, really, love quant, my comfort zone is qualitative, so I’m more comfortable in posting simple questions that spark discussions (ie “Anyone read that Salon article?”) rather than proposing ideas and theories for robust testing and interrogation
To be fair, this is a really awesome forum that I might have found purely by mistake. I’m still not sure if I should be here, but I have been made to feel welcome, valued, and encouraged. I’ve got loads to say on the EA brand and its communications challenges and opportunities, but every draft post I’ve written (four so far) I’ve talked myself out of. I’ve no doubt my insecurities have gotten the better of me but, in my line of work, first impressions really do matter and I can’t seem to get past the fact that my first impression here matters more than in any other forum.
Hey Alex, thanks for sharing this! Have you considered sharing some of your drafts with the Forum team? (Curious if you if you know about it and felt it wasn’t worth sharing, or if you didn’t know about them)
If you feel like it, I’d love to know specifics thoughts you might have, even if they are rough—we don’t have a lot of people with PR/brand background, so I’m always keen to hear takes from people with different perspectives!
Hi Vaidehi. Thanks so much for responding! I assumed there was a team behind this Forum but I didn’t know (or wasn’t clear) that I could share draft thoughts with them. How is this done? Do I just send PMs to specific people like you?
How funny. I find myself intimidated just writing this comment. That said, this is an excellent post that quite accurately conveys the internal struggles and challenges of a newbie poster like me.
Though I’ve years and years of experience with brands, comms and strategy and have written, presented and engaged with boards, CEOs and rooms full of incredibly bright people, I’ve found that posting my thoughts on the EA forum is weirdly terrifying.
I’ve been trying to understand why for a few weeks now. As a member of a few other communities, in which I feel very comfortable, I thought it might be helpful to detail my insecurities here:
As a newcomer I get the sense that I accidentally wandered into a super cool group of super clever people discussing super clever things and that I wasn’t supposed to get the invite. Of course being me, I then went on to misread the invite and showed up in a clown costume honking a horn
I like to write. But I write in a more personal and expressive style (much like this comment) and, like others, I find the writing style here is very complex, formal and intimidating. It’s not like my style, so I think maybe I shouldn’t post
Voluntarily offering my thoughts and ideas to be judged by very smart people isn’t my favorite thing to do so I’ve found I get stuck writing and editing in circles in order to sound clever instead of clear
My expertise is in the highly subjective areas of strategies, brands, messages, creative thinking and customer experiences which feels massively superficial compared to the big stuff people talk about in here
I suspect like many others, I’ve got an oversized fear of trolls, or of tripping on the outrage tripwire. I’m not saying trolls are here, just that outrage seems to be everywhere these days and a lot of us have learned to be hyper-cautious
I came into the EA shop looking for clever, rational people and communities with interests in social, communal, behavioral, public policy, creative design and systems based EA and found AI, BioRisk and Animal Welfare communities—which are all great, but again, I think I misread the invite
In my other groups I tend to respond really well to questions. I’ve got lots of thoughts and ideas of my own, but to answer a question feels a lot more helpful
Though I really, really, love quant, my comfort zone is qualitative, so I’m more comfortable in posting simple questions that spark discussions (ie “Anyone read that Salon article?”) rather than proposing ideas and theories for robust testing and interrogation
To be fair, this is a really awesome forum that I might have found purely by mistake. I’m still not sure if I should be here, but I have been made to feel welcome, valued, and encouraged. I’ve got loads to say on the EA brand and its communications challenges and opportunities, but every draft post I’ve written (four so far) I’ve talked myself out of. I’ve no doubt my insecurities have gotten the better of me but, in my line of work, first impressions really do matter and I can’t seem to get past the fact that my first impression here matters more than in any other forum.
(Gulp!)
Hey Alex, thanks for sharing this! Have you considered sharing some of your drafts with the Forum team? (Curious if you if you know about it and felt it wasn’t worth sharing, or if you didn’t know about them)
If you feel like it, I’d love to know specifics thoughts you might have, even if they are rough—we don’t have a lot of people with PR/brand background, so I’m always keen to hear takes from people with different perspectives!
Hi Vaidehi. Thanks so much for responding! I assumed there was a team behind this Forum but I didn’t know (or wasn’t clear) that I could share draft thoughts with them. How is this done? Do I just send PMs to specific people like you?
You can send your post to Lizka (more here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4WxHNBf5LeM9gQneT/you-should-write-on-the-ea-forum#Key_Forum_resources)