Knowledge Genie provides a simple and powerful structure to help you organize your ideas and package your smarts for publication. If you already have a blog, a documented how-to, website, or even a book you can do much more with a Genie than just cutting and pasting your existing information.
For example, your Genie is the interactive, online companion guide for your book. Your Genie succinctly brings to life the contents in your book by creating updated links and information. Your Genie directs your readers a chapter in your book for more details. As for your website, its your online brochure; but your website is not where you give away your precious knowledge. Your Genie is where your knowledge should be placed to create a more robust product and/or service offering. You don’t sell your website (i.e., brochure), but you can sell your Genie.
Perhaps even more importantly, if you are just starting with a topic and few good ideas, Knowledge Genie will help guide you to bring what you know to life. Imagine, transforming good ideas into interactive, share-able, and sale-able reality.
Here are some quick tips to get you started:
- By the time your user has reached the end of your Genie, what do you want them to know or have accomplished? (i.e., grow tomatoes, master a total fitness routine, or know how to work a steel press)
- What are the steps they’ll have to take to reach that goal? How many are there? These will become the overall structure of your Genie. (i.e., 1. Fertilizing Your Soil, 2. Planting Seeds, 3. Proper Watering and Care, 4. When to Harvest, and 5. Great Recipes)
- Within each piece of your structure, what are the smaller action-steps that will take a user from the beginning of the step to the end? (i.e., in Chapter 2, Planting Seeds, you will cover: 2-1: Dig a three inch trough. 2-2: Ensure soil is properly moist. 2-3: Place seeds and cover with 3-4 inches of topsoil. 2-4: Pat lightly with trowel.)
- What information or background will a user need for each section? Separate this from the actions the user will be taking. (i.e., History of tomato planting, or Fertilizer vs. Compost)
- Think about creating (optional) checklists for your users so that they can track their own progress. (i.e., Choose Plot, Measure Soil Moisture, Buy Seeds, Buy Trowel)
- What terms do you use and take for granted? Create a glossary. (i.e., Heirloom Tomato – an open-pollinated cultivar of tomato, not used in industrial scale agriculture.)
- Will your users need diagrams, visual aids, or instructional videos to help them reach their goals? (i.e., a video of how to dig a trough for a tomato seed)
- What other resources around the web might your users need to help them complete their task? (i.e., links to garden tool stores, or local home-gardening groups)
These are a few ways to start thinking like a Genie, but there are limitless ways to use it to share what you know. So get started, and unleash your inner Genie!
