My guess is that thematic unity is important; it’s good to have “insights into a wide variety of [business problems]”, but you want those insights to seem to come from a unified source, so that the person ends up with some clear, vivid association with you (“Kaj: rational decision-making”) instead of associating you with a random hodge-podge of key words.
Do you have friends who are in your target audience, so that you can give them two-sentence descriptions of each of your potential themes and see which ones they’re excited about?
Do you know anyone who does business consulting for money, who you could ask questions of? I don’t know how often people make money for lectures, vs. for the sort of “consulting” where they listen to folks’ particular problems, and try to help them with them?
It sounds worth pursuing, anyhow—the idea of “rationality business consulting” has been batted around for a while, and it would be great if someone actually tries it.
Good points, thanks. I believe I’ll start with the “traditional” rationality stuff at first, since it’s easier to give the impression of everything coming from a unified source that way. Also, I know it better than the other stuff.
I spoke to some friends who are familiar with this kind of thing, and one offered to give me feedback (both on the content, and for my presentation style) as well as possibly put me in contact with people who might be interested. I think I’ll re-read What Intelligence Tests Miss as well as skim through a couple of other books on rationality that I haven’t yet read, and then see what kinds of presentation ideas strike me as good.
They did mention that what I’m talking about is really more lecturing than consulting, but they say there’s good money to be had that way too—presuming that I have the patience to build up a favorable reputation and references.
My guess is that thematic unity is important; it’s good to have “insights into a wide variety of [business problems]”, but you want those insights to seem to come from a unified source, so that the person ends up with some clear, vivid association with you (“Kaj: rational decision-making”) instead of associating you with a random hodge-podge of key words.
Do you have friends who are in your target audience, so that you can give them two-sentence descriptions of each of your potential themes and see which ones they’re excited about?
Do you know anyone who does business consulting for money, who you could ask questions of? I don’t know how often people make money for lectures, vs. for the sort of “consulting” where they listen to folks’ particular problems, and try to help them with them?
It sounds worth pursuing, anyhow—the idea of “rationality business consulting” has been batted around for a while, and it would be great if someone actually tries it.
Good points, thanks. I believe I’ll start with the “traditional” rationality stuff at first, since it’s easier to give the impression of everything coming from a unified source that way. Also, I know it better than the other stuff.
I spoke to some friends who are familiar with this kind of thing, and one offered to give me feedback (both on the content, and for my presentation style) as well as possibly put me in contact with people who might be interested. I think I’ll re-read What Intelligence Tests Miss as well as skim through a couple of other books on rationality that I haven’t yet read, and then see what kinds of presentation ideas strike me as good.
They did mention that what I’m talking about is really more lecturing than consulting, but they say there’s good money to be had that way too—presuming that I have the patience to build up a favorable reputation and references.