structures and data

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“The journey to knowledge is as important as the moment of realization, learning design has collapsed the journey into the moment, lessening the experience by depriving us of the collateral learning along the way.” —@RalphMercer

A Thousand Rivers

“Collecting data on human learning based on children’s behavior in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behavior at Sea World. … when you push a child to do something she simply developmentally can not do, you create a profound belief that (a) I hate this; (b) I can’t do this; (c) I will never be able to do this, and (d) There’s something wrong with me … Talk to gifted scientists, writers, artists, entrepreneurs. You will find they learned like a Yanomami child learns, through keen observation, experimentation, immersion, freedom, participation, through real play and real work, through the kind of free activity where the distinction between work and play disappears. Talk to a really good auto mechanic, carpenter, farmer, fiddle player, web designer, film editor, songwriter, photographer, chef, and you will find they learned the same way.”

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networked social capital

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When FiveThirtyEight published the details of 3 million trolls and bots that were linked to the Russian-based company Internet Research Agency, they were merely providing data. Two researchers initially compiled the data. But by making the data public, FiveThirtyEight was able to engage a diverse group of widely varying expertise in order to make sense of it.

It is only with knowledge that we can examine data and turn it into information. FiveThirtyEight realized that a small group of experts was not enough. These data required a subject matter network to make sense of them. The initial results are interesting but so far there are no actionable insights for the average person or organization. As a society we have some more information but are still none the wiser in knowing what to do next. But it’s a start.

“Many other readers shared their works in progress, and given the sheer size of the data set, there is likely much more to come — as well there should be. Releasing the data was meant to preserve an important historical record, but analyzing it is the only way to understand what happened and bolster national security.” —538-Russian Trolls

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socially mediated

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Social media extend emotion, obsolesce the linearity and logic of print, retrieve orality, and when pushed to their extreme result in constant outrage. A socially networked society could reverse into a popularity contest, where our value is only measured in our mediated reputation, such as numbers of Twitter followers or LinkedIn connections.

Our tribal leaders (religious, geographical, cultural), our institutions (political, religious, economic), and our markets (corporations, exchanges, trade deals) do not have the answers on how to live in a networked society. Only networked individuals, with positive intent, can determine how best to organize the next society. An aggressively engaged and intelligent citizenry can be an unstoppable force for change. But these citizens have to understand the new media landscape.

New media are changing education.

“The new media won’t fit into the classroom. It already surrounds it. Perhaps that is the challenge of the counterculture. The problem is to know what questions to ask.” —Eric McLuhan

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humans working socially

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A lot of traditional human work is getting automated, by machines or software.

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how professionals learn for work

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Jane Hart has been asking her readers what are the most useful/valuable ways that they learn for or at work. In the sixth annual Learning in the Workplace Survey, which surveyed over 5,000 respondents from a wide variety of industries and types & sizes of organizations, the following methods were ranked in order.

  1. Daily work experiences
  2. Knowledge-sharing within your team
  3. Web search
  4. Web resources
  5. Manager feedback & guidance
  6. Professional networks  & communities
  7. Coach or mentor feedback & guidance
  8. Internal resources
  9. Blogs & news feeds
  10. E-learning courses
  11. Conferences & professional events
  12. Classroom training

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‘we’re living in a very liquid world’

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When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall
—Paul Simon, Kodachrome (1973)

Nothing that you learned in school has prepared you for today. Nothing. You are not ready. For smug Canadians, consider that 2/3 of us think there is a crisis of asylum seekers at our borders. They are wrong. And even more worrying, Russian trolls may be behind this, or not.

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virtuous learning

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@ProfFeynman: “FEYNMAN learning strategy in THREE points:
1. Continually ask “Why?”
2. When you learn something, learn it to where you can explain it to a child.
3. Instead of arbitrarily memorizing things, look for the explanation that makes it obvious.”

“Learning is the ability to acquire new ideas from experience and retain them as memories.” —Eric Kandel (2000 Nobel Laureate), via @charlesjennings

“It is certain in any case that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” —James Baldwin, via @UNESCO

@AralBalkan: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.” – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. “I wonder if realised while writing this that it is the perfect warning about Silicon Valley, ‘the cloud’ and surveillance capitalism.”

@ChaosPrime: “remember, kids, if you absolutely bust your ass integrating yourself psychologically so you’re aware of what you’re doing and why and can actually act ethically, you then get to enjoy getting outcompeted by everybody whose neocortex is tasked solely with post hoc justification”

@white_owly: “Cognitive diversity makes for awkward conversation when you first meet. You’re essentially speaking different languages. Food for thought when designing a recruitment process.”

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expectations

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I have worked as an external ‘consultant’ for the past 20 years. Prior to that, I was an internal consultant, with my last five years of military service as a training advisor in the aviation field. Consultant is a very general term and can mean many things in different fields. My company is called Jarche Consulting, a term I chose in 2003 that would allow me to change my lines of business without requiring a name change. For instance, in my first few years of freelancing I did a lot of advisory work on choosing learning technology platforms, something I do little of today. I am a different kind of consultant now than I was in 2003.

My experience is that as an independent external worker, there are three fundamental roles.

  1. expert outsider
  2. consultant
  3. contractor

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summer sci-fi

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“Science fiction isn’t useful because it’s predictive. It’s useful because it reframes our perspective on the world. Like international travel or meditation, it creates space for us to question our assumptions.” —Eliot Peper

“I define science fiction as the art of the possible. Fantasy is the art of the impossible. Science fiction, again, is the history of ideas, and they’re always ideas that work themselves out and become real and happen in the world.” —Ray Bradbury

3 Reasons Why You Should Read Science Fiction:
1. SF Extrapolates Current Technology
2. SF Highlights Societal and Cultural Changes
3. (The Best) SF Helps Solve Big Problems
—Richard MacManus

I read a lot of non-fiction and post book reviews here. When I get a chance, I read fiction, mostly science fiction. Here are some recommended reads from the last year.

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