What You Do Know Can Hurt You
My wife and I had an argument tonight. It started off silly and pointless like most arguments do, but eventually settled on something more important. I am a professional software developer, I make a great living, and know the technology I work with very well. My wife is a 7th grade science teacher at a very impoverished middle school.
During our usual evening routine before we go to sleep, she spends her quiet time on her laptop in our bedroom, and I spend my time on my laptop in my office. This set up is by design and gives us a moment to ourselves before we watch a TV show and sleep. When you're married and have a toddler, alone time is important. Also during this time, my wife watches a lot of YouTube videos about one of her passions: fashion and make-up.
At some point, she read that some of these women running these YouTube channels about fashion and make-up were making a living at it through Google advertisements and paid endorsements. Like every Internet entrepreneur, who wouldn't want to produce content about something they love and get paid to do it (myself included)?
Excited with this idea, she told me about her plans. She wanted to set up her own channel, film her own videos, and review different lines of cosmetics and clothes. After she told me her plans, I completely and utterly ruined them.
You see, it is what you do know that can hurt you, and I'll tell you how.
When she let me in on her ideas, I immediately began to salivate: "You should really start a blog before the YouTube channel!" I'd exclaim. Or, "you realize this is going to be a lot harder than you think?" Or, "how are you going to respond to the negative criticism you're sure to receive? People online are anonymous and assholes!" I had many other "tips" and "pointers" and "constructive criticism" as well, but it was pointless, I had crushed her ideas.
Because my wife spends her time online consuming content and not producing it, she is unaware of SEO, or PageRank, or page load times, or how to host a blog, or website security, or how to deal with assholes. She doesn't know a blog would help her get organic traffic from search engines and she could embed her videos into each post, thereby adding additional content. But, it doesn't matter. She simply wanted to produce a few videos of what interested her to see if they could get some traction.
By completely overloading her with things she should think about, I caused her a great deal of frustration. She had literally not produced a single video and yet I was already telling her things she needed to do. In turn, I got frustrated, "why would you not want to learn from people who have already done this?!" I'd dare to ask. Simply, "I just want to learn on my own and make my own mistakes!"
As a technologist, this is an easy trap to fall into. We know so much about the Internet that our knowledge holds us back in ways it wouldn't a beginner. In other words, you know everything you don't know. Beginners are fearless, they jump right in feet first and are ready to work. Seasoned individuals tend to overthink problems, are too timid because they might not "be doing it correctly", or only use technologies they are familiar with rather than the right technology for the job. Beginners don't share the same development shackles a veteran does.
Next time someone you know has an idea that's fairly innocuous, don't bombard them with a million ideas. Let them share the same joy of experimentation you did when you were just starting out.
