https://x.com/patio11/status/1702729087582622124?s=20
Visakan Veerasamy: one of my best ‘party tricks’ is that I can have an interesting conversation with any subject matter expert about anything for an hour despite me having 0 prior knowledge of the thing. core thing is to ask earnest “I’d love to learn more” questions
5 minutes? just ask the person how they got into the thing that they’re into. when did you first get into astrology / neuroscience / norse mythology / mongolian throat singing? How did that happen? Wow, no way!! And then? You’re kidding. What?? Yea I see it. Damn! How else?
What do newbies like me typically get wrong about X? Why do think that is? What’s your favorite thing about X? Why? What’s the biggest source of drama in the X community right now? are you on either side or do you see both merits? etc etc. 3 hours have gone by.
Patrick McKenzie: A weird thing about this is that people often remember the curious party as being much sharper on the subject than the text of the conversation actually reflects.
Not to spread dark arts buuuuut that’s a useful thing to know if e.g. you are doing a job interview.
(A lot of good candidates don’t have a question at the ready for interviewers and if that is you then just ask the interviewer to monologue a bit about recent projects. Bonus: will be most honest window into culture/org you get during interview.)
what is your first question to the person who just entered a conversation with you? I go for “what do you do?” but that’s really boring https://twitter.com/liz_love_lace/status/1732191878173331465?t=GZyzES7qj-8zR1C1GrIe7Q&s=19
https://twitter.com/kindgracekind/status/1771744465398435954?t=s_XVy9ZIc8XzzFXPAPVOEA&s=19
Can you say more? Can you explain that further? Please, elaborate! Interesting, why’s that? Can you go into more detail? Go on… Can you walk me through your reasoning? What makes you say that? Interesting, say more! Can you expand on that a little bit? Why do you think that is?