We’ve struggled to find avenues by which to disseminate our advice. There seem to be few forums where smart high school students congregate. Those forums and mailing lists that do exist often have strict guidelines against posters promoting their own blogs. We’re grateful that Less Wrong has been welcoming.
I think you are likely making a strategic mistake by focusing on outreach instead of focusing on building a place where people want to go.
A wordpress page that doesn’t have an RSS feed but points me to a list of blog post written on another forum and a link to a Quora blog doesn’t give the impression of a highly reputable venue.
You wrote a bunch of high value post but didn’t published them on your own website but on Lesswrong and Quora. That’s nice for Lesswrong but doesn’t provide you yourself with a website that get’s good traffic from google.
Given that you already have a strategy of writing high value posts have you thought about asking a place like Business Insider or Forbes whether they would pay you to write posts on a blog on their platform?
At this point, we’re seeking philanthropic funding, and would appreciate any ideas as to how to secure it.
In the effective altruistic community there are people thinking about spending money where it has the highest impact, what’s your exact case, that they should give you that money instead of giving it to malaria prevention?
When it comes to having a public reputation I would also recommend to give speeches. There might be plenty of venues in San Francisco that like quality speeches on education. It might be a better way to build relationships with people who are willing to give you money than seeking money online, where you don’t meet the people who make the decisions face to face.
A wordpress page that doesn’t have an RSS feed but points me to a list of blog post written on another forum and a link to a Quora blog doesn’t give the impression of a highly reputable venue.
We had been meaning to add a blog for a while; upon reading your comment, we decided to do it today: http://cognitomentoring.org/blog. Thanks.
“I think you are likely making a strategic mistake by focusing on outreach instead of focusing on building a place where people want to go.”
I agree—I think it would be nice to create a Facebook group (at least). Forums/subreddits could also work, although I’m not sure if they would gain much traction at this stage.
A wordpress page that doesn’t have an RSS feed but points me to a list of blog post written on another forum and a link to a Quora blog doesn’t give the impression of a highly reputable venue.
We’ll be putting a blog on our website soon.
Given that you already have a strategy of writing high value posts have you thought about asking a place like Business Insider or Forbes whether they would pay you to write posts on a blog on their platform?
We’ve been looking into platforms that would be interested in publishing articles. We hadn’t considered Business Insider or Forbes. Why do you mention them specifically?
In the effective altruistic community there are people thinking about spending money where it has the highest impact, what’s your exact case, that they should give you that money instead of giving it to malaria prevention?
We’re not necessarily seeking funding from effective altruist types: we are concerned about the possibility of diverting EA funding, and would prefer to secure funding from other sources. We can engage in detailed discussion with people who are interested in the possibility of donating to Cognito Mentoring and want to hear our thoughts on its relative relative cost-effectiveness. I don’t necessarily think that donating to Cognito Mentoring is more cost-effective than donating to other EA organizations. All else being equal, there’s an a priori reason for donating to a smaller organization than a larger organization (diminishing marginal returns), but I would want to talk with other EA organizations about their room for more funding before giving too much weight to this point.
We’ve been looking into platforms that would be interested in publishing articles. We hadn’t considered Business Insider or Forbes. Why do you mention them specifically?
They seem to me like the kind of venues that are the best match. I would think that the kind of stuff you write has a better stuff at those venues than at Buzzfeed.
I would also consider it be to easier to become a payed blogger for the kind of content you want to write at those venues than at the New York Times.
I think you are likely making a strategic mistake by focusing on outreach instead of focusing on building a place where people want to go.
A wordpress page that doesn’t have an RSS feed but points me to a list of blog post written on another forum and a link to a Quora blog doesn’t give the impression of a highly reputable venue.
You wrote a bunch of high value post but didn’t published them on your own website but on Lesswrong and Quora. That’s nice for Lesswrong but doesn’t provide you yourself with a website that get’s good traffic from google.
Given that you already have a strategy of writing high value posts have you thought about asking a place like Business Insider or Forbes whether they would pay you to write posts on a blog on their platform?
In the effective altruistic community there are people thinking about spending money where it has the highest impact, what’s your exact case, that they should give you that money instead of giving it to malaria prevention?
When it comes to having a public reputation I would also recommend to give speeches. There might be plenty of venues in San Francisco that like quality speeches on education. It might be a better way to build relationships with people who are willing to give you money than seeking money online, where you don’t meet the people who make the decisions face to face.
We had been meaning to add a blog for a while; upon reading your comment, we decided to do it today: http://cognitomentoring.org/blog. Thanks.
“I think you are likely making a strategic mistake by focusing on outreach instead of focusing on building a place where people want to go.”
I agree—I think it would be nice to create a Facebook group (at least). Forums/subreddits could also work, although I’m not sure if they would gain much traction at this stage.
Thanks for the feedback.
We’ll be putting a blog on our website soon.
We’ve been looking into platforms that would be interested in publishing articles. We hadn’t considered Business Insider or Forbes. Why do you mention them specifically?
We’re not necessarily seeking funding from effective altruist types: we are concerned about the possibility of diverting EA funding, and would prefer to secure funding from other sources. We can engage in detailed discussion with people who are interested in the possibility of donating to Cognito Mentoring and want to hear our thoughts on its relative relative cost-effectiveness. I don’t necessarily think that donating to Cognito Mentoring is more cost-effective than donating to other EA organizations. All else being equal, there’s an a priori reason for donating to a smaller organization than a larger organization (diminishing marginal returns), but I would want to talk with other EA organizations about their room for more funding before giving too much weight to this point.
If you are adding a blog, make sure you reliably and consistently update it. Otherwise this may look worse than not having a blog at all.
They seem to me like the kind of venues that are the best match. I would think that the kind of stuff you write has a better stuff at those venues than at Buzzfeed.
I would also consider it be to easier to become a payed blogger for the kind of content you want to write at those venues than at the New York Times.