I was in Church (yes, I go to Church every Sunday for 3 hours) and the congregation seems to consist of a lot of very small business owners and engineers for companies that are employed by the government at a local nuclear facility. I was talking with one of the engineers and told him about the blog and how I write daily articles, opinions, and other contributions that I hope are insightful and helpful to the people in this industry.

He looked at me quizzically and said “Why do you share that kind of information with your competitors? Wouldn’t that hurt your business?”

I said “Well, it could. Our industry is a very sharing industry though. We like to share secrets and we like to tell others about our experiences and experiments. It’s a fun, good thing to do. I suppose that by sharing some secrets I put myself at the mercy of my competitors but that’s what makes it fun - what I share are usually more tactical secrets than strategic so there isn’t much of a disadvantage to sharing and it evens the playing field with these tactics. Sure, I’ll hint at and share strategy every once in a while…but the tactical secrets that I share are simply a good way to help others succeed.”

I guess I’m passionate about this. I continued “I guess you could call it a ‘well of knowledge’. If you are the writer or the company that exposes the secret first or if you find the secret and publish it out of obscurity first, then you get the most credit for it and you end up being an industry leader (’well of knowledge’) and Fortune 500 companies like working with industry leaders - it is or can be very profitable for those companies that are dubbed ‘industry leaders’. I want to be the ‘well of knowledge’ that people draw upon in my industry. My aim is to be an industry knowledge leader and I want to serve and consult with very large companies so there is a goal of attaining some form of monetary award from sharing everything I can now and in the future…but that isn’t the entire driving force behind the motive. I am trying to be a thought leader - and when I get there, I will feel great about my business.”

The engineer got bored because he simply said “Oh, ok - I guess that makes sense.”

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