Curation isn't complex. It's nothing more than, "I saw this and thought of you." Consider three scenarios derived from such a simple, beautiful moment.
Peace, motorsport and a catchup
Scenario one: AM peace. It's Friday morning. The beginning of the end of a hellish, chaotic work week. The kids are off to school and you have a half an hour of solitude. Sat on the sofa, you pull out your phone, open your emails and browse the latest issue of your favourite email digest.
Scenario two: motorsport live chat It's a light and fresh midsummer afternoon. In a couple hours, you're meeting friends for a barbecue. But right now, you're all watching the race. The WhatsApp group chat is ding-ding-dinging. One of your friends shares a link to a segment of alternative commentary narrating the crash that just happened and analysing the driver's manoeuvres that led up to it.
Scenario three: coffee and a catchup at a cosy cafe. It's winter. It's wet. It's cold. It's just not nice. But you're inside, warm and content, sat opposite a colleague-turned-friend in a local cafe you've recently taken a liking too. You pause as your friend reaches down to the bag at their feet. They place a CD on the table and slides it towards you.
Answers and their inverse
These are all acts of curation. But what makes them resonate? What is it about such deliberate sharing that makes it work? We have some tentative answers...
It comes from a peer: a "peer" is someone whose worldview has a non-trivial overlap with your own. That could be a friend or family member, it could be someone with whom you have weak or strong ties, or it could be someone you don't actually know but whose perspective is trusted and assumed to be aligned with your own.
It's downstream of a prior relationship or engagement: the likelihood for resonance increases exponentially when it comes in the wake of a previous engagement and/or when it connects to the context of an existing relationship.
It's relevant to past, present or potential future interests: the act of curation aligns explicitly with the interests of the recipient in some way—be it something from the past, because of a current priority, or due to a future situation.
There's proof of work: bundled within the act of curation is some signal that implies an expenditure of energy, effort or expense above a certain threshold. There's proof that the act involved deliberation and care.
It's received in a preferred manner: the act of curation is received via a channel and in a format that the recipient is comfortable and competent with.
It's succinct and easy to rapidly evaluate: the output of the act of curation is short, easy to parse, and includes enough information to make the call between engaging deeper and archiving or not engaging at all.
It's part of a majority-signal sequence: not every act of curation can be one hundred percent effective but the tendency of the sequence overall has been to be more signal than spam.
There's no request for or expectation of response: the act of curation is asymmetrical—no burden is placed, implicitly or explicitly, upon the recipient to acknowledge receipt, engage deeply and reply, or reciprocate with an equivalent act.
If all of the above are present, then it's a near certainty that an act of curation will resonate with the recipient. If we invert the elements above, we can also understand when curation will not resonate:
It comes from an unknown / someone without perspective-overlap
There's no prior connection or relation with the curator
It's not relevant to your past, present or future interests
There's no indication that effort was expended
It's received via a channel and in a format you dislike / don't use
It's long and hard to comprehend
It's part of a sequence of curation acts that haven't landed
It demands an acknowledgement, response or reply
See things and think of people
Think back to the scenarios from the beginning of this post. The pre-work peace, the motorsport chat amongst friends, the cafe meetup. In each case, the act of curation will either resonate or it won't.
What makes it most likely to resonate is that it comes from a peer, signals an outlay of effort, builds on an existing relationship, aligns with the recipient's interests, respects the recipient's preferences, is easily evaluable, is part of a larger, high quality sequence, and doesn't demand reciprocation.
What makes it likely not to resonate is the inverse: it comes from an unfamiliar source, lacks personal relevance or prior connection, shows no effort, arrives through unwelcome channels, is difficult to digest, follows a pattern of misses, and imposes unwanted obligations on the recipient.
Do you agree? Are these criteria the difference between an act of curation hitting or missing? We think so. But the best way for you to find out is to try.
Engage a little more deeply with the world and share what sticks. See things; think of people; share the things with those people. Repeat for time and enjoy the resultant transformation in your life.
