Ask me anything

This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Ask

Not because I know everything, but might know something you don’t know.

I’m not quite hip enough to have known where this came from, but when you start searching Google for anything that has the word “ask” in it, you come across stuff you didn’t know. That’s research.

In preparation for my talk later this week (as well as for my upcoming book (“Ask“), I’m researching all aspects of asking I can find. I wasn’t really sure what the “Ask Me Anything” event was all about.

From the “10 Tips” article mentioned below, this is how it apparently started:

The Atlantic does an excellent job in summing up how the concept of Ask Me Anything started:

In 1992, a book debuted called Ask Me Anything: A Sex Therapist Answers the Most Important Questions for the 90’s. KnowYourMeme says there was a mid-’90s AOL chatroom called, “Ask Me Anything” in the romance category. (Though it had disappeared by 1999, when the Internet Archive began capturing data on aol.com.)
from the Event Manager Blog

Of course, if someone “uninteresting” opened up an Ask Me Anything session, it might not garner that kind of attention. But in this case, a sex therapist? I suppose we all want to know what she knows!

I see this fall into a “knowledge” question.

I know something, more than you, things you’d like to know.
You get to ask me.

I see the allure. Especially with celebrities or people who “know lots that we don’t know.”

Breaking Down Barriers

What the “Ask Me Anything” is doing is breaking down a wall that’s usually in between the two people. Usually, you can’t ask a celebrity anything. Or a brain surgeon. Or, I don’t know, an author.

It’s an invitation to something that is usually:

Out of our reach,
Expensive,
Not in our sphere of connections.

What if you hosted an “Ask Me Anything” session? What would they ask you? What might you not answer? What would be the hard questions you’d answer?

What Others Are Asking

10 Tips to Run a Successful Ask Me Anything Session Ask Me Anything sessions or #AMAs are becoming increasingly popular. Learn how it can bring a breath of fresh air to your event and successfully engage attendees. Event Manager Blog

Ask Me Anything Thread on Reddit. There’s everything from “I’m a public high school teacher and I love my job everyday! AMA” to “I am a sex trafficking survivor AMA” and they’re answering people’s questions. Apparently, people want to ask as the thread is busy with activity.