Stretching a metaphor “to herd cats”: attempting to control the uncontrollable. Volunteers will work ten times as hard as any paid worker, but only on what they want to. So getting volunteers to do what you want them to is commonly compared to herding cats.
Cats can’t be herded—they do whatever they want to, which will not be to follow in an orderly fashion. However, you can get them to come to you very quickly and effectively if you have a can of tuna to hand. Similarly, you can get volunteers to work productively by making what you want them to do highly attractive to them.
That is, you apply a “pull” rather than a “push”.
I mentioned it because you can use this a bit in attracting people to your ideas. The danger is that they’ll cargo-cult the idea instead of understanding it, and that they’ll start following you. For extra loss, have both happen at once. For extra evil, don’t be worried that this happened. For maximal evil, invoke it deliberately. So if you want to use this to attract people to your ideas and you have a functioning moral compass, you need to be quite careful.
I’m a bit confused by this. Could you elaborate?
Stretching a metaphor “to herd cats”: attempting to control the uncontrollable. Volunteers will work ten times as hard as any paid worker, but only on what they want to. So getting volunteers to do what you want them to is commonly compared to herding cats.
Cats can’t be herded—they do whatever they want to, which will not be to follow in an orderly fashion. However, you can get them to come to you very quickly and effectively if you have a can of tuna to hand. Similarly, you can get volunteers to work productively by making what you want them to do highly attractive to them.
That is, you apply a “pull” rather than a “push”.
I mentioned it because you can use this a bit in attracting people to your ideas. The danger is that they’ll cargo-cult the idea instead of understanding it, and that they’ll start following you. For extra loss, have both happen at once. For extra evil, don’t be worried that this happened. For maximal evil, invoke it deliberately. So if you want to use this to attract people to your ideas and you have a functioning moral compass, you need to be quite careful.