It’s great advice. The way to get the most information out of anyone is to act unknowledgeable about the topic at hand. Taking on that role invites people to speak more and being clueless encourages questions that someone with experience would normally not ask and a truth that insiders may rather leave unspoken. Not knowing what you’re talking about allows topics, issues and concepts to be addressed in novel ways.

“Look at everything with a new-comer’s point of view, humble and curious; don’t assume anything, fact check; welcome new ideas and champion individuality; be respectful and honorable…”

An important element of success when being ignorant and on a discovery assignment is curiosity. Who? What? Where? When? How? …Why? When you’re ignorant and naive, there are no dumb questions. You’re there to learn and curious novice is a great receptor of information. Including false information. So fact checking is essential. Where naiveté allows for flights of imagination and creativity, fact checking brings you down to earth. Sometimes fact checking is as rewarding as the result you were hoping for in a health check up. Sometimes it’s the opposite and romanticized ideas are quickly iced by the truth.

Before Jack Hyde became a professor at FIT, he was editor for Fairchild Publications’ now-defunct men’s fashion business paper DNR. (DNR is the Adam to WWD’s Eve: Women’s Wear Daily, Fairchild’s fashion industry publication of record, began as small section in the Daily News Record.) As a Professor, he prided himself in launching students’ careers and in my case made it his mission that I follow in his footsteps. After encouraging me to a failed bid for the position of Editor-in-Chief of the school’s paper, he landed me an editorial internship at Sportswear International Magazine, a trade publication in New York’s garment district. There I would meet some of the most important people in my life. It was 1993.

Although I was often given varying temporary responsibilities, my assigned areas of focus as a fashion industry reporter were menswear, retail and marketing. I spent the next 5 years traveling the world learning the ins-and-outs of the men’s casual fashion industry.

At “Sportswear” my fact-checking diligence was quickly put to the test and after a couple of mistakes, my first editor, Mary McGuinness (coincidentally also a Jack Hyde pupil), patiently taught me never to assume anything: “To assume” she said, “makes an ASS out of U and ME.” I never forgot this but I can’t say I always lived by it. Some of the greatest mistakes I made in life were built on assumptions motivated by self-indulgent wishful thinking. The lesson is: Always fact-check. Or don’t publish it. And always verify your sources… And here’s another useful cliché: “Hope is not a strategy.” I know this last one is associated with partisan politics but you better believe it.

Sportswear’s Publisher and Editor-in-Chief was Michael Belluomo. Mike was one of the most well liked New York fashion industry insiders of his generation. A Vietnam veteran born and raised in the Bronx, he was a tall man with an unmistakable nonchalant yet imposing leaned-back swagger. He wore black alligator cowboy boots to match his daily all-black outfit and he is the only person I know who favored a different brand of cigarettes for daytime (Winstons) and another for nighttime (Marlboros). A voracious reader, by the time his staff walked in to work in the morning, he’d already read and clipped all the important dailies. Almost every weekday, at around 5:30 PM, his “garmento” buddies—industry heavy-hitters—would stroll in to discuss business and play a few games of pool. When covered up, the pool table doubled as a ping-pong table that, in turn, when covered, served as the fashion department’s temporary sample depository. But at around 5 PM, when Michael casually walked in with a glass of Scotch on the rocks in his hand, everyone knew it was time to clear everything off the table.

Whereas Professor Hyde impressed on me the tenets of proper journalism, Michael taught me that no one—not even him—could tell me that the way I wrote was wrong. He championed self-expression. Not only was his inexperienced staff’s creative point of view vital to the magazine but I believe that one of Michael’s biggest rewards was to witness and be part of these very young people’s individual take on the world. He didn’t always agree with everyone’s ideas, but he encouraged everyone’s individuality.

I feel that we were all in awe of Michael. We were all his kids and he believed in us all. I think we were all a little scared of him, but mostly we were all just grateful for the opportunity he’d given us to be ourselves and have a voice. But where Michael gave us freedom of expression he expected hard work, respect and loyalty in return. You failed to deliver on any of those and you were out.

What Jack Hyde and Michael Belluomo taught me in journalism class and in the editorial department stayed with me. Today, looking back, as I start a new chapter in life and a new business, I remind myself these lessons: look at everything with a new-comer’s point of view, humble and curious; don’t assume anything, fact check; welcome new ideas and champion individuality; be respectful and honorable… and a new personal favorite for 2012: Pull triggers.