John Seeley Brown is another education thought leader who I enjoy reading. I recently read A new culture of learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a world of constant change. I found valuable insights in Brown’s writings and presentations, which did not disappoint me.
Brown began his presentation by pointing out that we were entering a new culture of learning in a world of constant change. We need to become entrepreneurial learners, always looking for an opportunity to learn. In a rhetorical manner, he asked, How do we turn any situation into a learning opportunity?
During the presentation, Brown jumped from idea to idea. It was often difficult to keep pace. For example, he produced several graphs showing an S-curve where is a major jump in learning. The last jump was at the end of the 20th century. Introducing electricity and transportation changes drove the changes. The S-curve of the 20th century is being replaced by the infrastructure of the 21st digital age. He mentioned the challenges of managing the increased volume of information. For example, he says that he knows how to manage reading 100 books, but cannot grasp reading 100,000 books. We do not know how to select from an exponential number of ideas.
He always seems to let out a shout about the benefits of World of Warcraft. In his presentation, he again talked about the power of World of Warcraft and how the gamers gather and test ideas in it. Because the gamers crowdsource ideas, they can make significant overnight advancements. Businesses cannot make the same gains overnight.
The half-life of a skill is constantly shrinking. We are in a state of constant flow, and we need better ways to stay current.
Learning Through Practice
Creating knowledge is a critical new skill in these ever-changing times. Brown emphasized that normal training techniques fail to convey tacit knowledge. We need to work towards scalable learning. Learning has to be in the moment. He illustrated this point by explaining the difference between sailing and kayaking. While kayaking, you are part of the current. You must learn while doing and make rapid adjustments along the way. We need to change our ways of working, organizing, and innovating. We need to reframe our methods. Brown stressed that a new idea has a half-life of two weeks, and we must use it or lose it.
Brown gave a great example of how to change learning by telling a story about Dusty Payne who became a world-class surfer. Here is that story:
6 Ways to Become a World Champion
- Passion to achieve extreme performance and a willingness to fail
- Analyzed DVD of the best in the world.
- Use video to capture and analyze each of their improvisations.
- Pull the best ideas from adjacencies, e.g., skateboarding, motocross, windsurfing, etc. learning from other experts. Although competing, they help each other.
- Accessing spikes in capabilities around the world. Leveraging networks of practice.
- Attracting others to help them.
Dispositions of an entrepreneurial learner:
- Questing
- Connecting
- Reflecting
- Play – probing boundaries
You cannot teach these dispositions; mentorship cultivates them instead.
- Reverse mentorship
- Peer mentorship
Mentoring and Shared Knowledge
Brown also recounted the “Skadden Story,” where they brought on new lawyers through internships to assist in solving cases. These new lawyers were too efficient and were solving cases too quickly. Solving cases too quickly costs law firms money.
Basically, these new lawyers were using Twitter and texting to share information about cases to solve them. An internal technology consultant set up mentoring sessions between the experienced lawyers and new lawyers. They met regularly so that they could learn from each other, and they continued to improve the business. Mentorship and reverse mentorship must co-mingle.
Brown provided other examples where technology was used to help improve learning efficiency. For example, SAP developed a network community that answers questions in 17 minutes. The people who answer questions develop a reputation both internally and externally to the organization. Xerox takes stories from technical representatives and feeds them through peer groups for resolution. This is an example of combining social capital and intellectual capital.
Brown highlighted Google Hangouts as a powerful learning tool. Google+ allows people to gather 10 participants and share knowledge. Additionally, people can lurk on the periphery.
Play and Entrepreneurial Learning
For me, one of the most interesting moments was when Brown asked what the following people had in common. Answer after the list.
- Founder and CEO of Amazon – Jeffrey Bezos
- Creator of Sim City – Will Wright
- Google founders – Larry Page and Sergey Brin
- Julia Childs
- Founder of Wikipedia – Jimmy Wales
They all went to Montessori schools. Brown had high praise for the concepts taught by Maria Montessori and John Dewey. John Dewey is another one of my personal favorites. I think we keep getting further and further away from their teachings. Play is an important element of both of their teachings. Brown recommends we play more. He recommends reading Homo Ludens (PDF) written by Johan Huizinga. Brown pointed out that play gives permission to fail, a gateway to imagination and resources to reach an epiphany. Play allows us to probe the boundaries of the system. Brown then showed us a relationship between homo sapien – man as knower; homo faber – man as maker; and homo ludens – man who plays.
Brown jumped into examples where companies use play to advance their companies.
The key message in Brown’s presentation was that we need to provide employees with permission to play and to encourage entrepreneurial learning. Millennials are inherently entrepreneurial learners. The question is do we have the right environment to attract these high-speed learners.
Schools are another area requiring attention. Individuals will increasingly reshape institutions rather than vice versa. We should recognize individuals as unique and avoid pressing them into a cookie-cutter mold. We need to provide agile tools, agile networks for the development of agile minds.
Where imaginations play, learning happens.
