Learn by Doing: Get Faster Every Lap

NASCAR by pranavian

Automobile racing draws more spectators than any other sport. It’s not because of the danger, although the prospect of a crash certainly holds the crowd’s interest. What brings people out, time and again, is the simple demonstration that “he who learns fastest wins, but winning once does not guarantee winning again.” The spectators as well as the drivers understand that principle intellectually, emotionally, and viscerally. Although most spectators do not apply that rule in their own lives after they leave the track, the winners do, 24 hours a day, until the next race. They exemplify the difference between learning by watching, learning by miming, and learning by doing.

At The Water Cooler of Learning

Watercooler by LensENVY

We have become obsessed with formal learning in the workplace. In our zeal to learn, we have transferred the formal model of learning into the collective mind of our corporations. Even e-learning is simply less-expensive formal learning at a distance. Our obsession began when we decided we were in the knowledge economy. We concluded that … Read more

People-Centered Learning: An Interview With Judee Humburg

Judee Humburg

At the heart of my work is the deep belief software should work for people, not the other way around. This leads to the door of my dear friend Judee Humburg. We began working together over a decade ago. In 2001 she granted me an interview for a now defunct magazine. Her insights are as … Read more

Social Media Demographics: Who Uses Which Sites?

Social Media Demographics from Flowtown

Numerous social media sites have witnessed explosive growth of their user bases in the last several years, but it’s a known fact that the type of user a site attracts varies greatly. Have you ever wondered which sites attract the most educated of social media users, or those that pull in the highest income? This … Read more

Get Some Perspective

Don't Worry

Periodically I see something on a social network site that’s so compelling I want to share it with everyone — and hope everyone I share it with actually reads it. That seems unlikely but still worth every bit of effort. Today I stumbled across one of these sorts of gems. It’s a simple image that … Read more