Let's jump right in and talk about what IS the Polymathic Mindset?
Being a polymath can be simplified to this:
Someone who has 3 or more expertise deeply in those fields, and having an insatiable curiosity.
Thus being polymathic, or imbuing the polymathic mindset, is simply indulging into that curiosity, and managing multiple expertise. When you are a content creator you must wear many different hats.
Content Repurposing is simply taking a piece of bigger content, such as a long form video or blog post, and reconfiguring it for another platform. Either into another big piece of pillar content.
Such as a blog post to video, or podcast, and vice versa (picture a triangle).
Additionally, you can take any and all of those 3 pillar types, and turn them into micro-content/smaller pieces.
How to Use a Polymathic Mindset for Repurposing
The general understanding is to focus purely on your content type. If you're a YouTuber, then you'll repurpose into Tiktoks/Shorts.
If you're a podcaster, then you'll make audiograms and shorts. That's it.
There is no cross-examination thinking, or more accurately cross-pollination.
Your content is not limited to the format that it was originally created or intended to be. You can take a video and find quotes, that are then used as tweets or LinkedIn posts, and then you can make it into an image for Instagram or Pinterest.
Even cross promoting your content into other brands you have in your content ecosystem. That itself is a polymathic idea, having your own content ecosystem, and sub-brands as well.
Steps to Start Repurposing Creatively
It all starts with your strategy, and I would also say skillset. If you're still a novice at content creation. Then this post isn't for you.
You're still gaining the vertical skill of creating, whereas this post is all about the horizontal. Sowing the seeds for multiple trees of content in your ecosystem.
The focus should be on multiple versatile and evergreen pieces of content, that you can produce at regular intervals. I'm not going to tell you to do every week or every day, although that is ideal. Maybe your series is once a month!
Then you can reimagine the content into a new format, maybe using AI to expedite the process, such as turning a blog post into a podcast with your own voice. Adapting to the specific platforms based on your experience on that network. Don't just copy and paste everything, but cater your work to the platform itself.
While this does take creativity, knowledge of how the platforms work, and experience across the board. You can expedite the process by using AI to learn or automate certain tasks.
In Conclusion
The polymathic mindset can be applied in a multitude of ways, and that is really the point to drive home too.
I wanted to push people towards a more omnichannel creator mindset. Don't put all your eggs in one basket kind of thing. In order to be more multi-platform, then you need to employ the polymathic mindset.
You could even take this post and change content creation, for whatever field you are in.
Content is the medium of communication of our time. How we choose to disseminate that content is all up to how good you are at syndicating and repurposing especially.
Keep reading the Polymathy Newsletter!
Dustin Miller | PolyInnovator
