Out of curiosity, how have you been funding yourselves thus far?
Regarding promotion, there seem to be smart high schoolers on Quora. Even if you don’t link to your site directly in your answers, if you write good questions, answers, and comments on answers in categories you’re interested in, then people will probably visit your profile, right? My vague impression is that there are some “quora celebrities” like Yishan Wong who got a lot of visibility just by answering a lot of questions well.
You can also look at general “smart people” sites like http://boards.straightdope.com/ and see what their policies on self-promotion are; probably there will be some smart young folks or parents of smart young folks on such sites. Here’s a list I made a while ago, can’t vouch for quality. You could probably generate even more such sites by looking at recommendations made on sites on the list, e.g. this one for Less Wrong.
Metafilter is a pretty smart website and they have this section explicitly for promoting your own projects. Becoming a member costs $5. Since you’re interested in younger folks, maybe look at unschooling websites?
There seem to be few forums where smart high school students congregate.
Have you thought about creating such a forum? How many of your 70 advisees would appreciate a forum/chat room/etc.? Could be self-sustaining/growing.
I think your point about side projects is a really good one. When I sit down and think about the best ways to improve the world, a lot of them seem like they require passionate activists rather than boatloads of funds, e.g. improving reflectiveness seems like something that you’d work to accomplish in a way similar to typical “awareness-spreading” activities: create art, submit links to social media, try to convince important people that your ideas are correct, etc.
Out of curiosity, how have you been funding yourselves thus far?
We’ve been self-funded.
Regarding promotion, there seem to be smart high schoolers on Quora. Even if you don’t link to your site directly in your answers, if you write good questions, answers, and comments on answers in categories you’re interested in, then people will probably visit your profile, right?
Yes. The time cost associated with writing high quality answers from scratch is high. But there’s probably some low hanging fruit to be plucked in the direction of looking for questions asking about things that our articles address. Thanks for reminding us.
Quora celebrity Alex K Chen is one of our advisors, is a coauthor at our Quora blog, and has been compiling material useful to Cognito Mentoring.
Here’s a list I made a while ago, can’t vouch for quality.
Thanks, this is great, it’s the sort of thing I was hoping for when I posted.
Have you thought about creating such a forum? How many of your 70 advisees would appreciate a forum/chat room/etc.? Could be self-sustaining/growing.
James Miller made a suggestion along similar lines. We’re investigating this.
Quora celebrity Alex K Chen is one of our advisors, is a coauthor at our Quora blog, and has been compiling material useful to Cognito Mentoring.
Congrats. Maybe you could persuade him to include a statement like “I am an advisor to Cognito Mentoring” or similar in his self-summary? Or try to get other Quora celebrities to become advisors (esp. those who have taken an interest in smart high schoolers and answering questions related to them) and then get them to link to Cognito Mentoring from their profiles? How about asking past/present/future advisees to link to you from their online profiles?
BTW, I just wanted to say thanks a lot to both of you for working on Cognito Mentoring. It’s a great idea and it seems like you guys are doing a great job.
Out of curiosity, how have you been funding yourselves thus far?
Regarding promotion, there seem to be smart high schoolers on Quora. Even if you don’t link to your site directly in your answers, if you write good questions, answers, and comments on answers in categories you’re interested in, then people will probably visit your profile, right? My vague impression is that there are some “quora celebrities” like Yishan Wong who got a lot of visibility just by answering a lot of questions well.
You can also look at general “smart people” sites like http://boards.straightdope.com/ and see what their policies on self-promotion are; probably there will be some smart young folks or parents of smart young folks on such sites. Here’s a list I made a while ago, can’t vouch for quality. You could probably generate even more such sites by looking at recommendations made on sites on the list, e.g. this one for Less Wrong.
PhysicsForums.com
http://www.scienceforums.net/
stackexchange.com
http://hubski.com/
http://forums.intpcentral.com/
http://forums.xkcd.com/
http://slashdot.org/
http://c2.com
http://reddit.com/ (certain subreddits; see this keyword-searchable list)
http://news.ycombinator.com
http://quora.com
http://metafilter.com
Metafilter is a pretty smart website and they have this section explicitly for promoting your own projects. Becoming a member costs $5. Since you’re interested in younger folks, maybe look at unschooling websites?
Have you thought about creating such a forum? How many of your 70 advisees would appreciate a forum/chat room/etc.? Could be self-sustaining/growing.
I think your point about side projects is a really good one. When I sit down and think about the best ways to improve the world, a lot of them seem like they require passionate activists rather than boatloads of funds, e.g. improving reflectiveness seems like something that you’d work to accomplish in a way similar to typical “awareness-spreading” activities: create art, submit links to social media, try to convince important people that your ideas are correct, etc.
Thanks very much for your thoughts.
We’ve been self-funded.
Yes. The time cost associated with writing high quality answers from scratch is high. But there’s probably some low hanging fruit to be plucked in the direction of looking for questions asking about things that our articles address. Thanks for reminding us.
Quora celebrity Alex K Chen is one of our advisors, is a coauthor at our Quora blog, and has been compiling material useful to Cognito Mentoring.
Thanks, this is great, it’s the sort of thing I was hoping for when I posted.
James Miller made a suggestion along similar lines. We’re investigating this.
Congrats. Maybe you could persuade him to include a statement like “I am an advisor to Cognito Mentoring” or similar in his self-summary? Or try to get other Quora celebrities to become advisors (esp. those who have taken an interest in smart high schoolers and answering questions related to them) and then get them to link to Cognito Mentoring from their profiles? How about asking past/present/future advisees to link to you from their online profiles?
BTW, I just wanted to say thanks a lot to both of you for working on Cognito Mentoring. It’s a great idea and it seems like you guys are doing a great job.
Here is hubski.com’s policy on personal / promotional content: http://hubski.com/pub?id=100957
Obviously, you will get more attention and genuine interest if you don’t just throw links at the feed and hope they stick.