Photographer Leopold Kanzler worked with this beaver for two weeks hiding apple slices in his camera to get this shot. “I’m not sure who had more fun, me or the beaver, but it seemed more than happy with receiving so many tasty treats.”
I just finished reading the Dartboard Pricing book from Sean D’Souza. It’s the first of his paid products that I’ve read. And there were many things from this book, besides the content, that I thought were worth adopting.
Once upon a time I read an article of Sean’s on the topic of infotainment. He had various bits of advice, and one of them was something like: “You can connect or disconnect the entertaining part to the information part at will.”
In other words, if you are writing an email or a blog post or a book, it’s important that the email or blog post or book is fun to read. It’s also important that it has valuable content. The entertainment and the content can be connected, but they don’t always have to be.
In Sean’s Pricing book, he has lots of what you could call infotainment. Cartoons. Stories. And then, there’s a recipe for chicken biryani, spread over 3 pages.
The cartoons and stories tie into the content of the book. The chicken biryani does not, at least as far as I can see.
To sum up, connect or disconnect the infotainment at will. But my gut feeling is — there’s value in occasionally disconnected infotainment — it keeps people surprised and gives a sense of wonder.
I don’t think it’s something to do all the time. But once in a while, it’s better to throw in something fun and bizarre, rather than fun but reasonable.