This started as an internal note; we've lightly edited and shared here. This
should be considered a living document :)
If there are particular things you'd like to see us write about more, we'd
love to hear!
brendan | 12.12.23
Principles
These are core beliefs and values — what we want our writing to achieve, who we want it to reach, and why:
- build in public: writing can be an opportunity to digest our day to day work and think through aspects of it in a more considered way, and sharing a public notebook is good practice doing so both more clearly and more rapidly than we would otherwise
- inscribe the vibes: the things we publish, and their tone and style, are a great way to show what Hyperlink is all about — our core values, aesthetic, priorities — primarily through writing, but also via other mediums if and when we feel it's useful!
- follow our interests: our strongest writing comes from the things we're deeply curious about; our individual obsessions and collective explorations are both great wells to draw on
- write to find the others: Twitter is "tapping a tuning fork and seeing who resonates" (Kevin Kwok), and "a blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox" (Henrik Karlsson) — writing can help us find the people who care about the same things we do
- complexity is interesting: the realm of the ambiguous and unknown is where novel insights emerge — we should get in the weeds, share the details of our own research and observations and experience, and think aloud about multifaceted topics
- be a spark, a catalyst: our writing should aim to start conversations, elicit suggestions, prompt thoughtful responses or further inquiry — we write not to dispense wisdom but to explore things together, and we want to reach early adopters and fellow experimentalists
- be experimental: since we have many interests, and we don't always know what will resonate, it's okay to switch it up — not every post has to be a 1000 word essay; we can try one-offs and play with length, format, style, medium — this will also help us keep it fun!
- like raw honey: our writing should be high quality, but not heavily processed or over-optimized — not lazy, but not slowed down by perfectionism; it will take work, but should follow naturally as "exhaust" of the core work we already do
Strategies
A handful of strategies to play with in service of the above — how we want to work, processes we think will help:
- questions > answers: there's great value in asking good questions — both to point ourselves in fruitful directions for eventual solutions, and to find others who are aligned in our corner
- be prolific: it's important to get in reps — we can't predict how any given artifact will spread, and the more we publish, the more opportunities we have to connect, inspire, and iterate
- write collaboratively: our writing is best when we're pushing each other to jot down thoughts, expand on ideas, iterate to make things more clear — we should have more conversations focused on generating interesting things to share
- few channels, well: our blog (this notes site) and newsletter are the primary place for publishing substantive artifacts; Twitter is good for public conversations and a playful testing ground for ideas
- share the spotlight: we should tell the stories of other curious, creative, ambitious learners — we can publish things that show how Hyperlink can help people do real work in diverse contexts, to celebrate this work, and by so doing, raise the aspirations of others