I come from a background with a strong culture of "thinking in public". This means openly sharing learning experiences and insights - working with the garage door up.

I believe this practice is crucial for promoting growth and making knowledge more accessible to newcomers.

In contrast, the West Coast Swing community largely lacks this culture of collaborative inquiry. I believe that adopting aspects of “Thinking in Public” would greatly benefit our community.

What would "thinking in public" look like in the context of WCS?

Learn in Public

The aspect of thinking in public that I believe would be most immediately relevant for the majority of readers is "Learning in Public". You can think of it as tracing the trail of learning.

After you've learned or understood something - share your understanding - in a format that your past self would have found the most helpful. Use media and words/concepts that make sense to you. Create something that you of 3 months ago wish existed!

write blogs (and post them here!);
ask and answer questions here, on Reddit, etc. Prefer public spaces over walled gardens for this;
make explainer YouTube videos;
draw illustrations;
etc.

As far as I can tell this is basically not a thing in WCS community 😿

Why does learning in public benefit community?

It's great to have different explanations of concepts - using a variety of mediums and models, as more people can find the explanation that works well for them.

Also, there is generally a lack of publicly available well-structured explanatory WCS material out there.

Why does learning in public benefit you?

Teaching is a great way to learn

When I wrote about Lead Projection - it made me clarify the concept in my mind and to expand my understanding of it. I expect to understand it even better as I get feedback from people, who will read through my explanation and point out the ways it's incomplete or confused 🙃.

Refining your understanding through feedback

**Cunningham's Law**: the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer.

Try your best to be right, but don’t worry when you’re wrong. Repeatedly. If you feel uncomfortable, or like an impostor, good. You’re pushing yourself. Don’t assume you know everything, but try your best anyway, and let the internet correct you when you are inevitably wrong. Wear your noobyness on your sleeve
P

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