We don't 'do' learning. It does us
danielbmarkham.com
danielbmarkham.com
Take for example August Kekule who supposedly discovered the shape of the benzene ring via dream of an ouroboros. Or, Seymour Cray who came to solutions via "communicating with elves" under his home.
If I recall correctly, I remember reading that in ancient Greece it was believed wisdom and knowledge was some external thing (maybe only one philosopher thought this?), like a spirit that would visit an individual. Things were not actively learned, but they were granted and bestowed by an unknown force.
The article though is very difficult to parse. Not to be rude but the signature at the end makes me think the author might just really enjoy the sound of their own writing a bit too much and wants to come across as profound. Communicating things in simpler, more relatable terms is much more meaningful and valuable. Then again it's also possible the author is just so eccentric and brilliant that their way of thinking is difficult to follow.
IIRC, this TED talk is about it https://youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA
I think most successful new hires learn how to work within the "screwed up" environment, not how to change it--much less improve it. Change agents are rare.
> We think of computers interacting with people as something created by programmers… That's not true, though… folks creating UX receive vastly more stimulus from machines than they ever would create for others.
> Programming languages, IDEs, and dev environments affect the people swimming in them far more than those people change the world for others
An organization is always learning something, what and how are we learning, and does that fit for where we are now?
Strange. I enjoyed the article and nodded along with it but it seemed like an observation I have with a colleague over beers.
> Learning is not like seeing lions in a safari. More humble surfing. Less self-deluding chess.
> Reminder to self beginning.
> This is pedantic, but it's important.
The author mentions that storytelling is "near and dear to their heart." My guess is that they are trying to do the storytelling "hook" technique (where you start off by not explaining something fully so that people are compelled to read to the end and get closure). To their credit I did read to the end but I feel like that is a cheap trick. Like a UX dark pattern, but for writing.
The gist of the article is summed up in the title. I suppose this idea has implications for how you think about organizational learning but the author doesn't go into those implications whatsoever.
My own research flow is to read and consume a lot on the material I'm trying to absorb, then try to put that into some kind of essay, either to others or to myself, once I think I have something useful that's resulted. Then, if I'm working on a larger work, months later I come back and collect the associated works and use them as a basis for a first draft of long-form material.
I had no idea it would get many votes. Frankly, I wanted to share this with another site but whenever I share there, it gets auto-posted here. So I figured I would go ahead and submit here myself if it was going to show up in the feed anyway.
If anybody is interested in carrying on the discussion please ping me! I'm finding it fascinating to develop a meta-model that covers both machine, human, and organizational learning. Not sure that anybody's done that before. So far it's been a hoot.
Candidly I took away only one useful observation from your essay: all organizations are teaching organizations. They teach "the way things work around here."
I will engage in a discussion if you first take another hour to make your thesis and points clear. Don't publish it, send the draft to the coordinates in my profile.