Look at my Imagery. Fun stuff. Looks snazzy. An hour lost for all eternity. I got pulled into an interesting technology site and away from the work I intended to do. Temptation is like that.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about modern-day learning. Push and pull are both on the rise. I seem to get more email, junk mail, and telemarketing calls, and at the same time there are more and more goodies and knowledge on the web to explore.
My current definition of good learning is prospering in the ecosystems of which you are a member. Your ecosystems are many: work, family, neighbors, friends, acquaintances, information feeds, newspaper subscriptions, healthcare, online connections, links on the web, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. This involves so many different types of things that I think of it as a cloud. Just as the internet is a cloud (you don’t have to know the mechanics to take advantages of the connections it makes), so my ties to ecosystems are often hidden from me.
Most of the time, I occupy a position in my personal cloud. I may be at the core, quite conservative, rarely changing. Or I may be on the edge, taking risks, exploring new things, perpetually experimenting.
The edge is exciting because it’s where my cloud rubs up against other clouds. Sparks fly. New things result. The core, by contrast, is buffered from the friction at the edge. It’s oblivious but serene.
This metaphor of stillness at the core and unpredictable change at the boundaries makes more sense when when you think of the ecosystems in motion. The core hones efficiency; the edge adapts or takes advantage of change. One thing that makes life complex is that all the ecosystems are in motion. You change, they change, we’re all forever changing; friction is always with us.
When ecosystems rub against one another, we can choose the mix of pull and push we desire:
Pull is something I go looking for. It attracts me. I want it. I go to the store or the site to find it. I request it. I get it or have it delivered to me.
Push is something that comes looking for me. It’s email solicitations, pop-ups, and homework assignments. It arrives on its own.
I don’t draw a conclusion as yet.
Can you offer any suggestions on where this inquiry should head next?
RSS Feed
Follow Jay on Twitter
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
What about thunder and rain? Just kidding
My point is that you should always see the limitations of an analogy. Reasoning by analogy is powerful because it may help you find ways of seeing things which you had not thought about.