Your assumptions are sometimes embarrassing. That’s been the case for me many times… but none are as powerful as the ones we learned as children.
Family traditions are so strong and as a kid, they seem like the way things are.
My parents wouldn’t get me “sugar cereals,” for example. So when I went to a friend’s place and discovered that wasn’t the rules everyone else lived by? Life changing.
As a teen, I discovered two false assumptions in one single moment.
It was a cold winter morning. I was bundled up in blankets, fast asleep, when the smoke alarm blared. I looked out my bedroom door and saw no burnt toast.
The entire room was FULL of SMOKE.
Wearing my tightie-whities and a t-shirt, I yelled “fire,” and headed out the front door. Elementary school had drilled this into me: I remember how they emphasized you take nothing and proceed directly to your family meeting spot.
And from that meeting spot in front of our house, I watched my father through the front door I’d left wide open.
He was sweeping up embers that had sparked out of our wood stove. They produced some significant smoke but caused very little damage.
And I had two simultaneous realizations:
- That house fire meeting spot might be situation-dependent
- You won’t be immediately arrested for wearing underwear in public
What?
Yeah, as a young child, I was told I had to put on pants or else the police would arrest me. As a parent now, I can appreciate how my dad used the tools he needed to get me to comply.
Somehow, I made it into teenagerhood and believed it was true.
Until I stood outside in the cold, nothing over my skivvies, and wasn’t handcuffed.
These may seem like ridiculous assumptions, but it’s stuff this big that we notice clients miss all the time.
Maybe they never added their API to their status page. Or hadn’t realized how hard it is to generate an initial token to make test requests.
These happen outside of documentation, too. They’re so focused on competitors that they don’t realize how powerful complementary tools can be in their content strategy. Or they assume blog posts are the only type of technical content they need.
That’s why we ​take a partnership model with our clients​. Yes, we have deliverables, but we also help identify the areas where they can improve.
We can help you see your assumptions that leave you standing out in the cold.
Can we help identify some gaps in your technical engagement program? We have a few slots available for Q1 2025. ​Let’s chat now​.