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photo credit: Curious Expeditions
The other day, I found myself sitting with two other PR professionals, doing what I swore I’d never do–talking about “young people today.” The conversation began when one colleague was relaying a recent experience he had while sitting on a panel for a journalism class at the local university. Despite the fact that the panel included four highly experienced PR professionals from well-known organizations–several of which could be considered controversial–when it came time for questions, no one had any.
No one.
Since when do students not have questions, especially journalism students? My friends and I continued to grumble a bit more, and then laughed at ourselves for acting like old people. But the conversation stuck with me. I thought back to several informational interviews I’ve done lately with people who are in the midst of job searches, and realized that there were very few questions asked of me during those interviews. It’s not that the conversations weren’t engaging–most of them were–but very few people actually asked me questions about my company, my client work or the industry in general. Mind you, these people had done their homework–they had researched the agency by looking at our Web site. But still, there were few questions that indicated a want to dig deeper, learn more, even push me to think harder to provide a meaningful answer.
When did we stop asking questions? Do we not ask because we think we can learn everything we need to know from the Internet? Believe me, the Web is a great source of information. But it doesn’t provide nuance, context, experience, emotion–that we get from other people. That we get by being curious. That we get by asking questions.
I would be remiss if I didn’t add that the lack of curiousity definitely is NOT simply an attribute of the younger generation–unfortunately, it affects all of us. And many of the younger people in my office are constantly asking questions so they can do better work for our clients–including one who has tackled barley cultivars and biofuel, another who has become an expert in fire-resistant fabrics, and yet another who makes it a point to learn something about nearly every one of our clients, even when she doesn’t touch the account at all. That type of curiosity leads to a better work product, more creative thinking and frankly, a more interesting life.
Take a look at what Donald Latumahina has to say about why curiosity is important. Then go find someone and ask questions. Lots of them.
photo credit: State Library of New South Wales collection
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November 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I agree. Part of the problem might be that– in an age of personal blogs, Facebook status updates and minute-by-minute tweets– we expect other people to tell us what they think we should know and when. We live in an era now where people deliberately inundate each other with information, putting their thoughts and feelings out into the ether without so much as a prompt.
I also wonder sometimes if we are spending so much time instant messaging, commenting on pictures, sending emails, etc. that real time (where you don’t get to control the time like you do through a digital medium) is actually too real? How many times have you gotten a text and thought to yourself, “I’ll text her back in a bit?” You can’t do that in a face-to-face conversation. Are we all just awkward now?
November 6th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Natalie - I have a few questions for you…:) As you can imagine, I love this post! Now, back in the day…Hah! I am a big fan of curiosity, and I often wonder if it is because I have more time that isn’t taken up with duties these days. I truly find some of the folks who are not of my boomer generation among the most interesting people I’ve encountered - full of wit and intensity and not lacking in interests. But, the example of the journalism class makes me think that the program in question should just shut its doors. Argh!