Jul

3

Low Tech, High Effect!

Filed Under Development, Education | Leave a Comment

In this day and age of technology solving every problem we seem to be coming up with more (problems) as time passes. We’re inundated in our In box, we have more projects than we can poke a stick at and every one of them is Priority Numero Uno. And the adage “do more with less” just isn’t funny anymore!
I remember a manager saying to me that “If the only thing you look forward to on Monday is Friday it’s time to look for a new job.” Back then (mid 90’s) I think he was on the mark. Today I’m not so sure.

I know people who work all day, work all night, finalise things on Saturday and fly out to a new project on Sunday! And one says to me “Maybe it’s just me!”

Er, no, it’s not. It’s a lot of people. So much so that the stress levels are increasing and it’s all to do with the pace of change we’re facing these days.

There is just a lot on.

So how do you maintain your edge AND stay ahead of the game?

Reading other people’s blogs you get the feeling that we’re all looking for a ‘rest’ of some kind. Something that forces us to slow down, smell a rose or two. Even writing this I feel compelled to write faster, get on with another post, write an article, finish a book chapter, make a coffee! (Short Mac thanks, one sugar!)

The I read on David Seah’s site the post he wrote on Modern Spellbooks. It is an insightful post about how we learnt before the internet. (Yes kids, once upon a time, there was no internet!)

It basically came down to taking notes. Clear, concise and readable notes. Notes that weren’t always edited later. David refers to them as “spellbooks” because that’s what they ended up being. From what I gathered each notebook was dedicated to one topic. Everything you wanted to know on the subject was in there. He even handed over an original book to an up and coming student after he had graduated!

I have also found, without the insight of David at first, that simply writing things down, long hand can aid in the learning / memorising process. It forces you to think through your words, ensuring them to be coherent at the time of writing. Imagine that you had one book on coaching that contained the thing you had learnt, the tips, the pitfalls, the insights the tools - all in one resource!
What has this got to do with the opening; pace of change and all that?

Well, put simply, if you learn something well once, you don’t have to re-learn it. I find, especially in corporate circles, the pace can be so fast that it is fraught with dangers of decisions being made based on “loose learning”. We hear it, “get it” and make decisions on information we don’t truly understand. We haven’t learnt it!

So maybe getting a notebook, writing things down, reviewing them later (alone - with a coffee) may, in fact, infuse the reader with more knowledge than they at first thought.

The conclusion being that you become the one who really does”know” what they are talking about. The panic (bedlam was a word used by a colleague last year) is diminished because it also builds a profound confidence in what you know to do, how to think, how to communicate.

Trip on over to David’s site and read through his post. I am sure you will find it interesting, likely inspiring and definitely drive you to action.

I’m off to write some spells!

Jul

1

Was Liliana Right?

Filed Under Business, Development, Education | Leave a Comment

Maybe - but just not now.

With the constant debate about the Western Australian education system continuing one thing most people agree on is that there needs to be a significant change.

The then Minister for Education, Liliana Ravlich, made an unwise comment of children learning through Google. In one sense it was a plainly stupid comment in that it:

  1. promoted Google as an educational alternative - which it clearly isn’t (yet? Google guys, are you listening?)
  2. slammed the current level of competency from our hard working and underpaid teaching community - who needs teachers when you have Google?
  3. demonstrated a lack of thinking on the part of a key minister in charge of a large portion of our next generation’s education

So in the current state of affairs the comment was completely off the mark. And I don’t think you can paint Ms Ravlich as a revolutionary before her time.

However, head on over to a site that is gaining a fair degree of support in terms of tertiary education: www.personalMBA.com

Josh Kaufman is gaining a LOT of support for his alternative to the usual expensive Uni based MBA.

From the site …

“The Personal MBA (PMBA) is a systematic program of business self-education designed by Josh Kaufman to help people master advanced business concepts without enrolling in a traditional MBA program. Instead of spending time in a classroom, PMBA members believe it’s possible to get a great education by reading good business books, applying what you learn to your daily work, and discussing advanced business topics with others.

The Personal MBA consists of three main components: (1) a recommended reading list of best-in-class business books; (2) participation in the PMBA community forums; (3) optional personalized coaching to help keep you motivated and moving forward toward your business and personal goals.”

You can download Josh’s manifesto here … Personal MBA Manifesto

And so, do we see educational evolution happening right in front of us?

Is this the new world that Liliana tripped over?

I think it was Ashley Montague (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Montagu) who said that “the mark of an educated person was one who had overcome the limitations of the educational system.”

If you look at business success stories you find, educated formally or not, people who apply basic business skills well. It doesn’t matter what their certification says.

I am not suggesting we don’t educate ourselves, actually, the opposite - life is an education. However, the schooling system may need to see itself differently (as an education community?) in order to embrace alternative sources of education.

What I am suggesting is that, in the near future, will the Web organise itself well enough to provide a real alternative to classroom learning?

In his excellent book “Built to Last” Jim Collins found that successful companies adopt of a philosophy of the “AND” rather than the “OR”. Can the two, or more, education philosophies co-exist and be accepted?

Are we seeing the first vestiges of true online education via the Personal MBA?

Liliana, take a bow, if you really knew what you were saying!