Clubhouse and The Future of Ideas

You never really understand just how hard it is to convey ideas until you take on something as ambitious as my AIP series. I believe this is because the most pressing ideas of the day, the concepts that will change the world, are not easily summarized in three-minute clips.

As technology has progressed, distances have become less relevant, and ideas can be instantaneously transmitted across time and space. At the same time, our attention spans have grown shorter, and interest in reading has declined.

For example, my written posts (like this one) generally garner less engagement than my videos. The ideas I explore are no less exciting or meaningful. In fact, my written posts allow me to explore topics in more detail. Still, there is no escaping the fact that the way our society consumes information has changed.

The convergence of these trends has resulted in an interesting predicament. We find ourselves in a position where we have big ideas worthy of discussion and the platforms to transmit those ideas, but those platforms inherently limit conversation depth.

The solution to this problem may be at hand. Clubhouse, the audio chat-based social network, seeks to promote deep and meaningful discourse by embracing long-form discussion.

If you think about the amazing popularity of podcasters like Joe Rogan or even YouTubers like MrBeast, you’ll find they have one thing in common: they all embrace long-form content.

Rogan’s podcasts, for example, are typically around three hours long. In the age of 140 characters and 30-second attention spans, this fact seems difficult to believe. However, if you listen closely, you’ll find that when a conversation is allowed to ebb and flow naturally, interesting ideas have the opportunity to germinate.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again in my video series, “Anything Is Possible,” which aims to share positive and uplifting stories of fascinating people making a difference in the world. Our videos are casual, 60-minute conversations, but the logistics of production can be daunting as you can imagine.

Clubhouse’s platform promises to help make these kinds of conversations less formal and more spontaneous.  I, for one, am excited to explore what it has to offer. Follow me on Clubhouse @patricktsang. I look forward to sharing ideas with you!

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