we wander so much by Svanes on Flickr
The other day, famous San Diego Fire twitterer and all around good guy, Nate Ritter, worked the day at Citizen Space. We got into this great conversation about the worth of useless knowledge, which reminded me of some research that I ran into a while back on Information/Knowledge Brokers
From the abstract:
Opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups, so people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Brokerage across the structural holes between groups provides a vision of options otherwise unseen, which is the mechanism by which brokerage becomes social capital…The organization is rife with structural holes, and brokerage has its expected correlates. Compensation, positive performance evaluations, promotions, and good ideas are disproportionately in the hands of people whose networks span structural holes. The between-group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable.
Knowledge brokers, those people who bridge the structural holes, are sought-after because they bring information between disciplines. Um…BRIDGING CAPITAL! Duh! Of course! One of the many reasons why Bridging Social Capital is so darned important for career/reputation/business building is that you are able to adeptly fill those structural holes to make all sorts of genius decisions, connect key people and come up with crazy innovative ideas.
So yes, Nate is a knowledge broker. I am a knowledge broker. Probably many of you who read this blog are knowledge brokers. And it is a very very valuable skill to have. The rate of your success as a knowledge broker is the length to which you can connect those structural holes, which are filled with a great amount of information, connections and crazy ideas (usually from another batch of useless information).
In fact the amount of useless information one can amass plus the confidence at which one can deliver it is directly correlated with the amount of money one will make disseminating this information.
And how does one amass this information, you may ask. Well…by what I lovingly call: FUTZING.
I’m not sure if I am even using the word correctly, but what it means to me is the process by which one wanders around without aim, having conversations (with new and old friends), gathering random information, learning ostensibly useless knowledge and avoiding all tasks/duties clear and present.
I do this alot. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been the queen of it. Chris also does it and even though I get ornery with him (mostly when I’m waiting for him to complete one of those avoided tasks), I fully understand that this level of futzing is what contributes to his level of genius that I so rely on.
But Nate brought up a really important question while we were talking: “How the heck do you get someone to pay you to futz?”
Hmmmm. Well, while futzing isn’t exactly something we list in the proposal, it is important for us to budget enough time to get our work done for clients and have plenty of hours of futzing…some of which is paid for, but most of which is seen as some sort of in-house expense. What’s paid for? If we are futzing with a purpose and direction: for example Client A, who is in the floral arrangement industry, needs a community strategy, so I’ll spend days futzing around with blogs, photos, competitors sites, forums, etc. that are related or bridged somehow to the floral industry. If our futzing leads to the ‘BIG IDEA’ or a super amazing connection. If the futzing is being done WITH the client (sometimes we coach them through our process…or lack of it). In the end, though, the futzing that is paid for leads to some sort of result the client can feel is tangible.
But the biggest issue is that you have to do a heckuvalotta free futzing to get to the point that someone will pay you to do it. For example, you have to have an enormous amount of information to give away to demonstrate that you are darned good at futzing. This is why blogging is really valuable. People can display all of the interesting things they’ve learnt and bridges they are able to make from their futzing. By demonstrating this in blog posts, potential clients see their worth. In fact, some of the highest paid futzers give most of their futzing away (which pays for more futzing). We are continuously giving away free information, connections and ideas we gain through our futzing and because of that, we don’t have to go to clients, they come to us.
Knowledge brokers are good futzers because, well, futzing leads to more knowledge. Maybe someday, bridging those structural holes will be automated, but for today, it’s an incredibly creative and valuable job done by master futzers all over the world.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Tara, this is probably one of the most insightful and useful pieces I’ve read in a long time. It’s like you looked into our (knowledge brokers) lives as a psychologist and told us everything we didn’t know about ourselves yet.
I think many of us have been this way for years without having any idea why. In fact, many of us feel like failures because we bounce from job to job, unsatisfied with being pushed into a box and held there. We need that interdisciplinary futzing, both because we feel we have to learn and also because we (or at least I) feel a sense of need to apply my futz-knowledge to other arenas of a business I’m involved in. That’s why putting me in a box (read: job title) and never letting me leave that job description feels so wrong and rarely keeps me in a company for very long.
But, as a consultant, I’ve been freed from the shackles of job descriptions. It feels weird to parallel ourselves with great knowledge brokers like Drucker and Edison, and although I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near their caliber, I do feel like I understand their brains and processes a little better than ever before. Mostly because I feel like “one of them”, but still a freshman in their college.
Thanks for your kind words. You’re awesome. Keep helping people to kick ass (as Deb said once)!
January 13th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I’ve found my tribe!!! The Futzers…
January 13th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Go futzers! I’ve always attributed my futzing to a near constant repetition of the question “Why?” bouncing around in my head. I think we’re always wondering “Why?” and that is what drives us. I love to futz.
January 13th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Makes me just want to say. What the Futz! Now I will go back to futzing around…
January 13th, 2008 at 7:45 am
This is spot-on, Tara. But I’m concerned it will give me even more rationalization for procrastinating, which I usually do by futzing around the Internet. Dangerous…
January 13th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Neat post, Tara.
N.B.: Master futzers need never fear the automation of hole-bridging . . . because there will ALWAYS be new holes to bridge. The ideas you’re putting forward here resonate with what Peter Drucker was writing 50 years ago about entrepreneurship in general, i.e. that entrepreneurs are always looking for gaps in the current way of doing things. These gaps can be places where (potential) user/customers are underserved, or where current products/services are inadequate for one reason or another (too expensive, too few features, poor standard of service, whatever).
Drucker was looking at a very long historical record of entrepreneurship — centuries’ worth — when he made these observations, and if anything entrepreneurial opportunities have only *increased* since then. In my view, the new technologies & communities with which you and I work — they create still *more* opportunities.
The point of master futzers isn’t that they happen to know the buzzwords for social media or whatever, it’s that they’re **good at futzing** of the type you so ably describe. It’s like good coders: it’s not just that they happen to know the ins and outs of Java or Lisp or Ruby on Rails — but that they grok coding overall.
Futzers tend to be early adopters, free-range learners, and early grokkers of what’s coming down the pike. And from what I can tell, there will ALWAYS be something new coming down the pike.
Which would seem to promise good job security for the likes of us!
January 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
At the risk of being unpopular … isn’t futzing simply “research”? Or perhaps an *evolution* of research. I guess you could argue that “research” isn’t aimless (as you describe futzing above to be), but particularly for clients who want to engage with customers in a community way the activities you describe
“Client A, who is in the floral arrangement industry, needs a community strategy, so I’ll spend days futzing around with blogs, photos, competitors sites, forums, etc. that are related or bridged somehow to the floral industry”
is definitely something I do and bill the client for. And they generally see the value.
But in any aimless conversation or surfing or “testing new technologies” (e.g. playing on Twitter
), I keep my eyes open and part of my client hat on. Sometimes there are serendipitous discoveries and sometimes not.
It IS interesting that likely what makes a good knowledge broker is that magic combination of procrastination, asking “why” (as Rob says) and filing away bits of data for later use – but that is to me, again, just research … it’s just what we do to be successful.
I just don’t know that we need a new word for it
January 13th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Kate: Futzing is what it is and “research” is what you call it when you want to get paid for it!
January 13th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
tee hee hee
January 13th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Sounds like you don’t futz, but research. What I’m talking about is the ability to get lost online for hours…even days at a time without purpose. This is what makes me smarter in the end, what has given me my knowledge. Sometimes it gets out of control, though…that’s why I’ve called it Futzing.
January 13th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Now I only need to figure out who is the Patron Saint of Futzer’s, and perhaps who wants to be a patron for us Futzers, and all will be well in the world…
January 14th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I am DEFINITELY a fully signed-up futzer! Although I have often found that such random behaviour is undervalued by many people. Reading this gives me hope
January 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
For the patron saint of futzers, I nominate . . . Leonardo da Vinci. Futzing before futzing was cool. (You can’t tell me he wouldn’t be an alpha geek if he were alive today.)
January 14th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Tara — I think you’re absolutely right about the application of this online, but I also think it goes way beyond this. It’s the sort of woolgathering & “aimless” thought that allows us to come up with the concepts that bridge.
Offline case in point: Steve Wynn in this Esquire article:
“The ideas . . . that’s a private thing. You muddle around. You drift off and your mouth hangs half open. Sometimes you stare at the wall like you’re in a trance. That’s when the good stuff happens.”
Maybe this doesn’t map to “futzing” as you mean it, but for me it’s online *and* offline, like this.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
This is basically what Scoble does?? Surf, meet folks and then make the interesting connections between everything. I’m always amazed when talking to folks – I’ll mention seeing something on the web and they will have no idea such a thing existed. I guess most people don’t surf 24×7
January 14th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
While my personal nomenclature for this is “putzing” rather than “futzing” (east coast thing, perhaps?)reading this made it pretty clear to me that putzing = my modus operandi–and that’s ok! It does indeed seem to suit my lifestyle as a web working entrepreneur where my job definition changes daily.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Dear Friend,
A group of researchers at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, are investigating effects of Weblogs on “Social Capital”. Therefore, they have designed an online survey. By participating in this survey you will help researches in “Management Information Systems” and “Sociology”. You must be at least 18 years old to participate in this survey. It will take 5 to 12 minutes of your time.
Your participation is greatly appreciated. You will find the survey at the following link. http://faculty.unlv.edu/rtorkzadeh/survey
This group has already done another study on Weblogs effects on “Social Interactions” and “Trust”. To obtain a copy of the previous study brief report of findings you can email Reza Vaezi at reza.vaezi@yahoo.com.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Tara,
You put your finger on this one. I’m the queen of futzing. But, I’ve also been working on integrating futzing with fundraising (futzraiding) for a cause (in this case Cambodian orphans) — and so although I’m not getting paid to do this — I’m helping to raise money for a terrific cause and spread the word about it.
Had a birthday recently, and gave myself permission to futz without guilt – and look what happened
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/01/a-birthday-gree.html
January 14th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I couldn’t agree more. I take pride in all my continuos “futzing” and large amout of knowledge I accumulate on various topics that interest me. Time and again I’ve been able to provide my connections various valuable information or knew exactly where to point them too.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:03 am
What do you think of building a community at whatthefutz.com? Hearing this has finally made me think I have a home.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am
LOL. I wonder how much more distraction we need?
But it may be fun to create it for the whole “Hello, my name is Dave, and I’m a Futzer” fun meme. 
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
my previous attempts in producing my own stream of content have all ended in failure. (In large part due to my constant futzing).
February 10th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Great article (and comments). The concept of Futzing ties in quite nicely with the concept of a “maven” as well.