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The Lone Prairie Blog

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Julie R. Neidlinger

The poorly platformed generalist, a dying breed killed by wandering curiosity.


“If you’d show that to the HR guy who called you confusing, now I think he’d get it,” my friend told me as I read off the copy I was using for a brochure about my website. I had attempted to summarize what Lone Prairie Art Works is, which is no easy feat.


Yes, one time I applied for a job and the guy looked at my resume and said “frankly I find you confusing” and I didn’t get the job but about half a year later he lost his job so what does he know.


Probably a lot, to be honest. It was a confusing resume. It was well-designed and laid out, mind you, but it’s hard to know what to do with such a random collection of jobs.


Is she qualified? Over-qualified? Going to create mass chaos in the office?


Anyway, the point I want to get to and would do so in a more delicate way if I weren’t impatient, is that generalists have no hope in a world of specifists.


Specifists have consistent brands, both in look and content. They finely tune everything with each new day, honing in on that max-profit-minimum-effort zone that comes with content geared precisely for an audience.


Generalists are generally interested in a lot of things, curious, maybe easily bored, willing to dabble. They are the jack-of-all-trades kinds of people (yes, master of nothing), but in terms of blogging, for example, they have a website and content collection that really has no particular audience except the morbidly curious, and family and friends.


When out with friends for dinner, a specificst is the bore who only talks about one thing. A generalist is a good conversationalist and a delight. They have a wide range of interests, a healthy state of curiosity, and a tendency to start discussions with “I read something interesting the other day…” and everyone is off to the races.


But that’s in real life.


On the internet, we prefer the specifist. With information flying at us from a firehose in every direction, the need to be able to select for specific content is valid. I understand that.


It doesn’t mean I participate in a way that fits my understanding.


In the past months I’ve written about conspiracy theories, fake prophets, geocaching, writing tips, vague philosophies, movie tropes, and Dolly Parton. Every time a post goes out and I get a notification that someone has subscribed, I have to fight the urge to email them and ask “are you really sure? did you look at the other posts first?” because next week the post is going to be very different.


There are lots of handy tools to use for measuring online audience. You can measure what they like, how they engage, what makes them click, and what topics they are the most interested. The apps I use to blog and create my website kindly suggest things to me on my dashboard.


“Wouldn’t you like to use AI to generate headlines your audience likes?”


“Wouldn’t you like to know which search terms are popular and would bring people to your website?”


“Here are you most popular posts. Consider writing more on this topic.”


How do you tell a machine you’ve moved on?


It is difficult to use those handy tools to refine my audience for more effective targeting on social platforms or ads. I know, because I’ve tried.


“What audience would you target this ad to?”


Hmm. That’s a tricky one…I guess if they’re alive and can read, that would work.


All of the useful guides I created or consumed while working in the content marketing world have little application in my generalist hands, self-destructing as any attempt to apply them either fails immediately or within a month when my curiosity wins out over “consistent content.”


I mean, I consistently produce content. It’s just that my audience has no idea what it will be. I don’t always know what it’ll be. An interesting book, a tap at the window, frustration at the grocery store—all are viable sources for 2,000 words. Content is less connected by theme and audience preference as it is by tape and baling twine.


Farmers are often generalists. They need lots of skills to keep things going. I love farmers.


Back to that brochure I was working on.


While sifting through the vast terabytes of data storage I have at home, looking for graphics that illustrated what I was going for as I at long last attempted to slap a definition on what Lone Prairie was, I realized I was picking the graphics I made over 20 years ago, for early versions of my website. They exactly illustrated what I wanted to say today.


“Would you look at this,” I said to my friend. “I’ve come full circle.”


Generalists, whatever else you might say, are well-rounded people.

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