Develop A Habit: A Learning Mindset

According to Howard Gardner, this is an obsolete idea:

Life can be divided into distinct periods such as an education period which is then followed by a work period.

Many, however, still mindlessly embrace this idea. If you embrace this obsolete idea then you risk the fate of what Alvin Toffler warned when he said that 'the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.'

Help in avoiding this fate is as close as the internet. The use of tools available via the internet can help develop the habit of lifelong learning. For the inquisitive mind, the internet is like an 'all you can eat' buffet. If anyone is interested in a resolution for the New Year, consider pledging to develop the habit of lifelong learning. While the options seem endless, here are a few spots to get you started.

Malcolm Gladwell has a great website: www.gladwell.com. This site offers an archive of Gladwell's New Yorker articles and information about his books. You are sure to learn something.

Watch or listen to a TED Talk: www.ted.com TED is about spreading ideas and each talk only takes about 20 minutes.

Download and read a .pdf file. The Medici Effect by Frans Johanssen will help you learn to be creative. The entire book is available for a free download at www.themedicieffect.com The website www.changethis.com offers a huge selections of manifestos by some great minds.

Use the websites of traditional media such as www.nytimes.com or pbs.org

Use the websites of the new media such as wikipedia.org or youtube.com

Want to learn to play the guitar? There seems to be an unlimited selection of videos on youtube.com with guitar players showing the chord sequences of songs.

Want to learn to cook? Check out Mark Bittman's wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bittman There are several links at the bottom of the page to Bittman's presence on the web.

What to learn a foreign language? http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are touting the value of learning to play bridge. They are funding programs that teach bridge to school age children. If you think that bridge would be good for the plasticity of your brain, download a free program at www.acbl.org that will help you learn to play bridge.

Museums can be great for sparking creativity and learning. Many museums now have a presence on the web. If you want to examine the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, go the British Museum's site that lets you turn page by page through those notebooks: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

Watch video on the internet. I learn by watching an unbelievable lineup of guests on The Charlie Rose Show. Episodes are offered at www.charlierose.com

Listen to a lecture from one of this nation's great universities. MIT offers what they call 'open courseware': http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Many are available through itunes: http://www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning/ including Stanford: http://itunes.stanford.edu/ and Yale: http://itunes.yale.edu/

Some universities have related centers and ventures that maintain a separate web presence. For example, Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/ or The Harvard Business Review: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/hbr/hbr_ideacast.jhtml

Many of these sites offer the option of subscribing to a podcast: If you want to learn something about economics, you might like www.econtalk.org

Truly, the options abound. It is up to each individual to decide what they are interested in learning about and then to find the teacher. The idea is to develop a mindset of learning. Always be learning. Committing to be a life long learner is simply a matter of habit.

Born To Learn

Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
Act IV, Scene IV
A plain in Denmark

What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capacity and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.

Humans are designed to learn.

We are born to learn. Babies learn vast amounts of skills and behaviors, without the aid of school or direct instruction. They learn through their senses, through observation, and largely through practice, trial and error. I know way too many adults, fully capable, that have stopped learning. They are too busy, too tired, not interested, too afraid, too lazy. This is sad and I think creates great sadness as these individuals find themselves more and more out of sync with the realities and demands of our world.

We need to learn and learn and learn. Being a lifelong learner has never been so necessary, so exciting, and so easy. Every day one can travel to the great museums of the world, into concert halls or rock stadiums, to classes at great institutions of higher learning, into the minds and lives of teenagers posting to blogs, Twitter, or You Tube. I just don't understand the adult who has decided they are as good as they get or as necessary right now.

Design Rules Applied

I enjoy reading Garr Reynolds' blog and love his book, Presentation Zen. He recently posted this list of 10 design rules to keep in mind for graphic presentations.

10 design rules to keep in mind
(1) Communicate — don't decorate.
(2) Speak with a visual voice.
(3) Use two typeface families maximum. OK, maybe three.
(4) Pick colors on purpose.
(5) If you can do it with less, then do it.
(6) Negative space is magical — create it, don't just fill it up!
(7) Treat the type as image, as though it's just as important.
(8) Be universal; remember that it's not about you.
(9) Be decisive. Do it on purpose — or don't do it at all.
(10) Symmetry is the ultimate evil.

Because my mind loves to make bigger and more connections, I immediately saw that this list aptly applies to great writing as well, for oral presentation as well as to be read. Here is my interpretation of these rules for writing.

In creating an impactful and effective message, it is important to be direct and precise without being flowery and cute. If the speaker or writer expects the audience to spend time staying focused and open to the message, then communicating directly without decoration respects the audience.

Images and analogies provide a way to tap into the audience's well of experiential wisdom. Visual language helps the listener or reader place themselves in the message. Taking the audience to an idea through their experience or a place is a beautiful and powerful thing. Yet, be aware that this skill is not well-developed in all listeners. Some people derive great comfort and control from concreteness and exactness. I would recommend using nuance and imagery and data. Imagery moves the listener. Data sells.

Typeface is a mode of graphic representation. The analogous element in speaking or writing would be the tone. Pieces are better if they have the same overall tone throughout with maybe some change in tone for effect or mental break along the way. An old writing teacher called these digressions "windy roads," solidifying the point that they twist and turn, but they lead somewhere; they are purposeful.

Colors have great subconscious significance. Using color intentionally is merely a subset of the charge to use every element intentionally and respectfully, always conscious of and focusing on the audience needs and perceptions first and foremost.

Less is more is a simple yet powerful goal in all things. In writing there is a paradox. You must write clean but you must communicate fully so that the message is not left up to the interpretation of the audience. In order to effectively seed the message, you must control the message and its interpretation. Just enough words is the goal. The same former writing teacher advised, "When you think you have taken out all that you can, take out 10% more." I think it's hard, and tedious. Having a day or so between drafts helps one see what can go.

Negative space in an oral presentation is the pause. Allowing time for words to penetrate is essential. Creating space for the audience to listen then fully receive and think about the message in the moment is vitally important. The writer can create this space through the structure of the message, controlling the arc and pace, and by signaling recovery time through paragragh breaks and topic changes.

Being universal; remember it is not all about you. This is the best advice on the list. Think about it don't you tire quickly, and almost immediately, of people who drone on and on about themselves? The message should focus always on the audience needs, interests, concerns, values first. Having empathy and deep understanding of the audience is how to ensure you are creating a message that is appealing and authentic enough to be heard and considered.

Being intentional shows the care and consideration and diligence and passion one has toward any project. Being intentional takes great time and reflection and huge effort. The benefit is that being intentional leads to a more authentic, more personal, and more intimate message.

Symmetry in a message to me connotes balance or indecisiveness. As the listener or reader, I continue paying attention to a writer or speaker that honors my time and earns my trust. What I am looking for is his or her argument. I want to see and follow their reasoning and their passion. My sustained attention signals that I am willing and seek to be convinced. Whether the speaker or writer will prevail in convincing me is different, but I want them to use their time and mine in a diligent direct effort. I don't want to be presented with a balanced argument because in the end, the message is empty because I am right where I started, in a position of either-or, and I have wasted my time and effort. There needs to be a call to action which is not symmetrical.

(Treat the type as image - had to leave this one out. Any analogous ideas? Send them to me!)

Open Source Thinking

This post by David Gurteen of the Knowledge Cafe was too good to alter. It explains the big cultural shift in knowledge -- it is not power anymore. Sharing knowledge and using your knowledge to participate in something bigger than it and bigger than yourself is what the new climate is.

Open Source Thinking

To me this is at the heart of what web 2.0, enterprise 2.0 and km 2.0 are all about! Its a different mindset that many people still do not get or like to see. Open source thinking is sharing and remixing. You've got to set your ideas free, you can't control your content. It is a different mindset: "Ah darn, someone else has got there first" versus "Great, don't have to do that, I can build it on it!" For me, it's been the ability to think out loud with colleagues on ideas and topics, share presentations, etc.

Credit: Momentum by Alison Fine

Is Your Organization Smart?

The analogy waiting and wanting to be made is to ask is your organization smart? Just as asking the right question is paramount, understanding all of the embedded criteria in a direct question is paramount as well.

Using the Smart car as our focal point, one must specifically deconstruct "smart" in order to understand the question, or in effect, the many questions encoded in the word "smart":

• intelligence -- does your organization use intelligence to derive solutions?
• whimsy and personality -- does your organization's actions and responses delight and reveal your personality?
• custom and made to order -- does your organization aim to provide person-specific solutions that conform to your values and mission as opposed to a one-size-fits-all type service?
• just-in-time -- does your organization lumber along on rhythms that fit the organizational structure or are you sensitive and responsive to customer needs as they occur, or even proactively?
• collaborative -- does your organization strive to co-create with your customers and collaborate internally across division boundaries and power hierarchies?
• effective and efficient in a just enough way -- is your organization meeting the needs of the customer as described by your mission in a balanced and effective way?
• open-minded and forward thinking -- is your organization constantly looking to make improvements in order to meet customer needs and actualize your mission? Are you striving to learn new ways and new things as an organization, all the time?
• conversation starter -- is your organizational energy such that people want to be connected to you and know about what you are doing? Do they want to be in relationship to your work?

Is your organization smart? It seems like a simple and easy question. But, really, it is very hard to be disciplined and committed to developing a responsive, innovative, energized organization that is striving to be the best at what it does, and is working diligently to delight its customers.

So, you can't quite say yes, without a doubt, yours is a smart organization. The value is in knowing that options and criteria exist in order to work toward culture change and mission definition and alignment so that soon you can, in the future, regale yourselves at your journey to Smartville.