Spiky opinions or positions are popular these days. Nobody wants to read another opinion piece that opines similarly on the same things again, so it’s understandable. Now people look for “fights to pick”, outlier positions to take or to highlight potentially controversial elements. We can unpack the appeal of spiky opinions in three ways.
Novelty
Spiky positions are novel, promise to offer a new perspective and can reveal valuable new thinking in an area.
To begin with, novelty has been shown over and over to be attention-grabbing and interesting to people, if only momentarily. Interest in novelty soon wears off, though, and in today’s digital speed of thinking, novelty rarely lasts much longer than 6 seconds. Fortunately, most spiky positions have more to offer than just novelty!
Highlight Different Perspectives
Spiky positions can be powerful when they highlight a less common or rare but relevant case that is new or highlights the impact of key elements on the world. Outliers often represent different perspectives not often seen by the masses that can make a great basis for a spiky position piece. Other’s vastly different experiences bring learnings from far and wide to an argument that is new locally but may be long-standing elsewhere or in other circumstances.
Learn Differently
Most valuable are spiky positions that reveal new beneficial thinking, help us find new solutions, a path forward or clarify why the world is the way it is.
When you can integrate knowledge from different sources to allow others to learn more easily, you have a very positive impact. The best spiky positions come with spiky profits too, so keep an eye out for those! Share your positive, integrated spiky ideas about your ecosystem to truly add value in the world.
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