“Social” Thinking vs. Doing

In an earlier post titled “Doing vs. Knowing What to Do” we said “You can repeat what someone else says yet not fully understanding the value of what they said. You can mimic what others do but it doesn’t mean you are mimicking what they know.

Knowing something is reflected by how well you do that which you know. Doing something you don’t know is reflected by the poor results of what you do.  All this being said do you follow what people do or what people know?”

Even if you follow what people know it doesn’t mean you know what you need to know.

Learning “How” and “What” to Know

A surgeon goes to school for eight years and continues to learn throughout their lifetime.  What they learn is how to apply knowledge and surgical practice towards medical remedies for patience. When innovative practices and technology enters the surgical field surgeons seek to acquire the new knowledge to stay at the top of their game. The acquisition of new knowledge requires:

1. Awareness that new knowledge (innovation) is available
2. The wish to acquire said knowledge
3. An understanding of the benefit
4. Learning how to use it
5. Practice in its application

Unless you are a surgeon schooled in the thinking and practice of being a surgeon than innovative developments in that field do not interest you unless you are a consumer of the innovation, a patient.

Note that # 1 above (Awareness that new knowledge, innovation, is available) only happens when someone else first creates the innovation. So in the supply chain of “knowledge creation” we see:

1. Those who “think” about how and what can be done better (innovation)
2. Those that become aware of innovation and acquire the relevant knowledge
3. Those that understand the benefit of using the innovation to create more value
4. Those that simply learn how to use it
5. Those that practice how and what others are using it for so they can copy it

Social Doo Doo’s

Learning about how to use social media depends on the reference point and knowledge the learning is grounded in.  Today the market seems consumed in following what others are doing, #5 above, and creating “benchmarks” of what is or isn’t working for the current market.  While it may seem that this is a good basis from which to learn it is in fact be the wrong basis to build knowledge for creating innovation.  After all innovation is something you create from thinking and doesn’t usually come from existing practices that others are following.

Social Doo Doo’s are those that practice and copy, what others do expecting to get the same or better results. Social Doo Doo’s are a dime a dozen and the market seems to think hiring the Doo Doo’s will help their business do something different. Doing something different and getting more than you’ve gotten in the past  requires you to know how to think which isn’t what others are doing.

Gaining  new knowledge or creating new knowledge and knowing what to do with it is more productive than doing what others do. To gain or create new knowledge requires thinking which is a lot deeper than doing.

The top of the  social media iceberg reveals what everyone is doing. Below the surface is what some are thinking can be done and creating the next innovative shift.

Like the Titanic many brands and people are simply cruising along doing then when they hit what they should have seen coming it sinks their doing.  Then again you can’t understand what you don’t see or think about seeing.

Tagged as: acquisition, doo doo, innovative practices, knowledge creation, knowledge innovation, lifetime, patience, patient note, relevant knowledge, supply chain