I’ve always suggested that people, especially doctors, should make things. They should create content. But this is a tall order and I’ve realized that curation, conversation and commentary (the easier, lower order ways we engage with information and the Internet) may represent lower lying fruit for my colleagues. Consumption, of course, is the easiest part of what we do online.

But the barriers to creation are changing. Consequently, sharing ideas and creating simple things has been made easier through the popularization of constrained media. For the uninformed, constrained media are those platforms that effectively limit what can be made. Think Twitter, Vine and Snapchat: time and character limited. Contrast those with that of a blog entry: open-ended and intimidating.

Constrained media level the playing field and decrease the opportunity for stratified expertise.  Many of the newer forms of constrained media mix sharing and creation.  David Weinberger’s triple helix of information, communication and sociality changes the motivation for creation.  Constraints make it approachable.

This post from Andrew Chen describes why short format information may be a game changer. Conceptually, this is important. I have read this post over and over and can’t stop thinking about it.

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Pro Tip: If you dig this post you may want to read more about constrained media. 33 charts has a dedicated tag for this phenomenon called (believe it or not) Constrained media. Check it out and read about how short format communication is changing the way we all interact with information and one another.