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Leola Chidester wrote on
my Kindergarten report card, "Although Marcia wants to be President, she'd
make a terrific teacher." She went on to explain that my endless
energy and constant curiosity could be used to help people learn new things and see different
points of view. Years later, after rethinking my political aspirations
on a train across Northern Africa, I recalled Mrs. Chidester's words.
Maybe I ought to pursue my passion for learning.
I have spent much of my
life in corporations, often unraveling overly cumbersome education
departments, moving functions into the business line or redesigning
software programs so that they don't require endless training. Over the
years this has required working in areas as far-reaching as education services,
OD, marketing, business development, interface design, publishing,
interactive architecture, usability, learnability, and human-factors.
In the end, I'm
ultimately interested in helping people tap into how they learn so they
can attain personal productivity and bliss through means other than
lengthy and often costly traditional (even online) training programs. I
refer this as "liberating the learner in each of us." My mission is to
evoke and educe a passion for learning in each person's soul, allowing
for the unconstrained pursuit of personal joys. I'm happy to report, I'm
not alone in this quest.
On the personal
front, I'm married to a handsome and talented guy named
Karl. We have a young
son who keeps us humble and our animals keep us grounded.
We
live and work out of 50-acre homestead in
Augusta County,
Virginia.
A few years ago I birthed not
only a son. I published Learn More Now: 10 Simple Steps to Learning Better, Faster, and Smarter
(John Wiley & Sons, March 2004) and coedited
Creating a Learning Culture: Strategy, Practice, and Technology
(Cambridge
University Press in July 2004). These days, I also contribute to
Fast
Company.
I'm managing director of Ageless Learner, fellow of the
Batten Institute at the
Darden Graduate School of Business
Administration, served as editor-in-chief of
Learning in the New Economy Magazine,
facilitate workshops on
new
forms of organization design and
complexity, and serve as
coach for some terrific executives around the
globe.
At work or at play, I
love learning and helping other people learn. I hate to see people miss
out on what's interesting and fun around them because they haven't
figured out how to master new information quicker. Sometimes this
knowledge-transfer happens in a classroom—most of the time it happens
informally and when we least expect it.
If you're interested in
these same sorts of things, let me know what resources you've found
particularly useful.
Always learning,
learning all ways,
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Ageless
Learner
Fast
Company
Learn More Now
Creating a Learning Culture
Learning in the New Economy Magazine
(LiNE Zine)
Learnativity
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Leola Chidester, Sally, Beth, Paul, Sherry, ?, Laura, Mike, Andrea.
Middle: Ellen, Kevin, Nina, Doug, ?, Pat, Mary, Tom. Bottom: Steve,
Me, Mark, Linda, Scott, Lori,
Richie,
Kim.
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