There are two ways of knowing things
I love a smart book on any topic. On the one hand, i love the way they can shortcut my knowledge of something. But books often have a problem. They’re only one way into what true knowledge actually is.
Bruce Dickinson, of Iron Maiden fame, once said this on a podcast:
“To know something is more than to have knowledge of something.”
Ain't that the truth. And yet, this isn't how we think about our jobs. We assume all we need is second hand exposure. I often describe knowledge in two ways:
You know it in your brain
You know it in your bones
Knowing in your brain is done through gatekeepers. You see part by part. Google planning. PDF planning. LLM planning (to an extent). Social listening.
Knowing in your bones is done through gestalt. You see the wider pattern. First hand experience. First party qual and quant. Observing behaviour. Lived reality.
Of course, you need a mix of the two because of business constraints. But the real question is the ratio we encourage in ourselves and others.
How often do you write strategy based on what's in your brain? How often do you do it based on what's deep in your bones? Can those ratios work harder?
The real test of our knowledge isn't just in how intelligently we can talk about a given topic. It's also in how intensely we feel that topic as we talk about it.
