​What looks like a distracted and fragmented world of work gains clarity when you understand the simple credo that drives it: blended leaders believe that connected brains are more powerful than unconnected brains, that more brains are better than fewer when solving complex problems or dealing with a world, technological or otherwise, that changes constantly.

With a quick search of a Google Group he belongs to, Reshan can find more than five years worth of documented knowledge gaps in the form of requests for help to do the job he was technically being paid to do. Participating in such a forum may seem like a risk, because he was simultaneously exposing these gaps and requests for help to people who may be future bosses or who may someday be competing for the same job as he is.

In the past, fear of this risk may have been appropriate. However, this breadcrumb trail does not lead to a represented lack of knowledge, but rather reveals one’s grasp of how to solve problems by relying on a network of people who have similar contexts and experiences. It reveals a self-starting, growth-oriented mindset. Certainly you learn a lot by doing—by trying to solve problems without any additional help. But, when others (or an entire institution) are relying on you to find the solution to a problem, such fum- bling around in the dark may be a luxury.

Another advantage of such a public display of gaps in knowledge is that they make available other people’s public questioning practices. Of course many online discussion participants are hidden behind identity-fogging ava- tars and usernames, but when Googling a solution, the best answer often comes not from officials from a product or service but rather from engaged users on message boards—from “new researchers,” passionate amateurs, and the newly converted.