Author: Dwayne Melancon -- Email me      Find me on Google+

About this site

Hello, I'm Dwayne Melancon and I write here on a wide variety of topics that only have one thing in common:  They appeal to my sense of genuine curiosity, and my love of learning about new things.

The content here tends to have a high bias towards gadgets, books (mostly business & personal development kinds of titles), travel, management, leadership, communication, and topics related to learning.  But sometimes other things will show up here, as well.

This site is a personal outlet for my thoughts and, as such, my posts might be a bit farther apart when work is busy, but I generally update at least once a week.

Thank you for stopping by - I hope to see you often.

Why "Genuine Curiosity"?

The concept is this: when you're talking to people about stuff, rather than trying to connect the dots in your own mind (i.e. jump to conclusions or make assumptions), hold back a bit on that tendency and ask another open ended question. Simple, but it'll make a difference in what you learn, how open people are to you, and how much you connect with them.

For example, one of the things I practice is seeing how long I can talk with someone while only asking open-ended questions. Not in a juvenile "made you look" kind of way - just to see how much I can find out.

Some of the most useful questions I've learned for this are things like:

"Really?"

"Why'd you do that?"

"What was that like?"

"Why do you think they did that?"

"What's up with that?"

"So, what are you going to do?"

Give it a try. Ask them in an "I really want to know more" kind of way. If it feels awkward, keep trying. Personally, I find it easier in a work context, but I think it's more valuable in a personal context.

What I've found is that it starts as a novelty, but you'll end up actually becoming more curious and more interested in what people are all about. And that's not a bad thing.

FTC NOTICE

Pursuant to 16 CFR Part 255, the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, please note: (1) publishers and product companies routinely send me free versions of their products to review. I sometimes keep and continue to use these products that I did not pay for after posting my review, which might be considered a form of compensation for my review, but I do not believe that I let that color my review. (2) When I post links to product pages on Amazon, my links include a referral code so that when products are purchased after clicking on the link, I sometimes receive a very small percentage of the sale. While the amount that I receive is small, it does help to defray some of the cost of running this site, and gives me a small vested interest in having readers of GenuineCuriosity.com purchase products using these links. Again I do not believe that I let that color my review of products.

If you have any questions about this, send me an e-mail.

Also, please note that I tend not to do negative reviews - it's just not my style.  If I evaluate a product and don't like it, I generally just don't write the review.

Content Licensing

If you are interested in using or licensing any of the content on my site that is outside the bounds of that allowed by my Creative Commons license, please contact me at the email link above.