I had lunch yesterday with Jack Vinson. Jack is teaching about knowledge management again this Spring and is planning on having his students keep blogs as part of the class experience. Back in 2002, I tired a similar experiment at Kellogg and blogged about the results then. I figured I would share the pointers here, [...]
Thanks to Jon Husband for pointing this one out. I’ve been a fan of Evelyn Rodriguez’s Crossroad Dispatches for a long while. Her writing challenges me to take risks that I don’t always rise to, but always appreciate.
Business Problems and Root Causes
A delicious discovery whilst browsing this morning …
From Evelyn Rodriguez’ bio on her [...]
One of the enduring benefits of being a consultant over the years has been the opportunity to go on more than my fair share of plant tours. I love the chance to learn about all the ingenuity and creativity that goes into making stuff. If you can’t get to the actual plant tours, here’s one [...]
I found these at a blog I’ve recently added to my news aggregator. Both the quotes and the blog are worth your consideration.
Some quotes I really liked
Found these in a completely different context (a discussion group about Prediction Markets); thought that they were wonderful descriptions of the “provisionality” of blogs. See what you [...]
There is an excellent discussion of learning as sensemaking going on over at Creating Passionate Users. Dan Russell has a series of posts (Sensemaking 1, Sensemaking 2, Sensemaking 3) about his thoughts and practices when he takes on a new research based project. In addition to the value of Dan’s thoughts, each post has also [...]
Ericsson’s essential point is that expertise is a function of practice not talent. One key point he makes is that:
“Successful people spontaneously do things differently from those individuals who stagnate. They have different practice histories. Elite performers engage in what we call “deliberate practice”–an effortful activity designed to improve individual target performance. There has to [...]
Both Stephen Downes and Guy Kawasaki have some thought provoking notions embedded in their lists. Neither will take you anywhere near as much time to read as they took to write their advice, so you can count on getting a pretty good return on your investment by leveraging their wisdom.
Stephen Downes - Things You Really [...]
My latest column at Enterprise Systems Journal appears today. In it I take a look at the notion of developing an ongoing learning agenda by focusing on the boundaries of your ignorance. One key graf:
The late Isaac Asimov once observed that “the most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, [...]
This is an interesting refinement on my laziness vs. diligence argument a while back. The danger is that it just becomes a slightly more clever way to reinforce the Protestant ethic Properly interpreted, however, Ballard provides a logic for making diligence pay off in compound interest terms.
Let’s all get lazy
If you want to be lazy [...]
[Cross posted at Future Tense]
I’m in the midst of reading John Thackara’s excellent In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World, which will eventually warrant a full review. Today, I want to pick up on one particular observation Thackara makes on the role of learning in organizations. He makes the point that
…the most important [...]
