The Maker’s Guide to Content Curation, Part 1: Open-Sourcing Your Learning Process

One of the best ways to advance your career, start an extra income stream, or become an entrepreneur is by creating content. 

By “content” I mean tangible information that delivers value to others, delivered over the internet. It could take the form of a blog post or a long-form essay, an instructional guide or a how-to video, an ebook or online course. Content is anything you make out of knowledge and ideas, either your own or those of others, that exists on its own as a stand-alone thing. Content typically has the goal of entertaining people, helping them learn something new, or giving them solutions to their problems without you having to be there.

Why is creating content such an effective way to advance almost anyone’s career or business? Because it gets you started making things, without many of the risks that are normally part of creating new things.

You gain experience in all stages of the creation process, from first thinking of the idea, to outlining the main points, to trying out different approaches, to refining and editing your “product,” to final delivery. But you get to do all this learning without paying for expensive overhead, like a staff, office rent, or equipment. You don’t need to quit your job or spend years earning a new degree. Creating most kinds of content requires nothing more than a computer or a smartphone to get started.