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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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Classical and Rigorous

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A recent twitter spat led me to some reflections, and I thought I’d share.  In short, an individual I do not know attacked one of my colleague Harold’s diagrams, and  said that they stood against “everything classical and rigorous”.  My somewhat flip comment was that “the classical and rigorous is also outdated and increasingly irrelevant. Time for some new thinking”.  Which then led to me being accused of spreading BS. And I don’t take kindly to someone questioning my integrity. (I’m an ex-academic after all! ;) I thought I should point out why I said what I said.

Theories change.  We used to believe that the sun circled the earth, and that the world was flat. More relevantly, we used to have management theories that optimized using people as  machines.  And typical business thinking is still visible in ways that are hierarchical and mechanical.  We continue to see practices like yearly reviews, micromanagement, incentives for limited performance metrics, and curtailed communication. They worked in an industrial age, but we’re in a new environment, and we’re finding that we need new methods.

And, let me add, these old practices are not aligned with what we know about how our brains work.  We’ve found that the best outcomes come from people working in environments where it’s safe to share. Also, we get better results when we’re collaborating, not working independently. And better outcomes occur when we’re given purpose and autonomy to pursue, not micromanagement.  In short, many of the classical approaches, ones that are rigorously defined and practiced, aren’t optimal.

And it’s not just me saying this. Respected voices are pointing in new directions based upon empirical research.  In XLR8, Kotter’s talking about leveraging more fluid networks for innovation to complement the hierarchy. In  Teaming, Edmondson is pointing to more collective ways to work. And in Scaling Up Excellence, Sutton & Rao point to more viral approaches to change rather than the old monolithic methods. The list goes on.

Rigor is good. Classical, in the sense of tested and proven methods, is  good. But times change, and our understanding expands. Just yesterday I listened to Charles Reigeluth (a respected learning design theorist) talk about how theories change. He described how most approaches have an initial period where they’re being explored and results may not be optimal, but you continue to refine them and ultimately the results can  supersede previous approaches.  Not all approaches will yield this, but it appears to me that we’re getting convergent evidence on theoretical and empirical grounds that the newer approaches to business, as embodied in stuff like Harold’s diagrams and other representations  (e.g. the Revolution book), are more effective.

I don’t knowingly push stuff I don’t believe is right. And I try to take a rigorous approach to make sure I’m avoiding confirmation bias and other errors. It’s got to align with sound theory, and pass scrutiny in the methodology.  I try to be the one cutting through the BS!  I stand behind my claim that new ways of working are an improvement over the old ways.  Am I missing something?

 

Cognitive Business

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One of my mantras is that organizations  need to align better with how we think, work, and learn.  However,  my focus has been specifically on what L&D can be doing (as that’s the folk I mostly talk to). But it occurs to me that it really goes farther.  There are applications of cognitive science (including neuroscience, cognitive psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, etc) to more areas of business than just L&D.  And it’s worth being explicit about this.

I was recently reading how marketing has leveraged understanding of behavior change at a deep level. We need to incorporate this in our learning design, but  it should go beyond training and learning and be involved in helping people understand why their work is important and how they contribute.

And similarly, the notion that our thinking is both  situated (e.g. reconstructed in the moment, not formally abstract) and distributed (across representations, not all in the head) has broader implications. It’s not just about performance support, but should influence policies and tools as well.

And the fact that innovation is social, and an outcome of slow percolation, influences more than facilitating communication and collaboration. It should influence corporate culture and expectations and time frames.

The list goes on: research says that organizational change works better starting small and scaling rather than a monolithic effort.  We know that design processes are better when they’re cyclical rather than waterfalls. We’ve discovered that  our inability to perform rote tasks flawlessly argues for changes in work processes and expectation. And we’ve found out that treating people fairly leads to better outcomes including retention, loyalty, and more.  Ultimately, we’ll want to be making smart cyborg choices about what to have people do and what  technology should do.

In short, we can be working smarter in many ways.  It’s hard to change from the old hierarchical models, but we’re continually learning that other approaches work better.  Heck, we may even be able to start working  wiser!  Here’s hoping.

How to learn and learn-to-learn

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I was asked by a colleague to answer some questions for a project on how to learn.  I naturally decided to answer in a blog post ;).metadoing

Q1. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from experience, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you used intentional practice, learnt from failure, learnt from ambitious projects and/or used reflection)

I try to look at feedback and reflect, specifically deciding how I will do things differently next time.  So,  I regularly read the feedback comments I get on my latest presentations (it really helps when that’s timely, hours or at most days, not weeks).  While obviously reveling in the positive ones, I look for constructive feedback that I can try to improve upon.  For example, the very first time I ran a workshop for the eLearning Guild, while most liked it two people asked for their money back. (I was really upset.) However,  I looked at their rationale, and realized I’d made specific  mistakes.  The Guild was somewhat reluctant to try me again, but I documented the exact two things that were wrong, and gave them my specific changes and why those change would address the problems. I’ve been doing workshops at Guild events for around a decade now!  (E.g. my Revolution/elearning strategy workshop at the upcoming DevLearn).

Q2. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from people, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you learnt from project teams, mentors, coaches and/or broader social networks)

I learn from folks in a variety of ways, but the key is asking questions.  I’ve asked questions and gotten answers from my social networks.  I’ve been very fortunate to have valuable mentors throughout my career. I’ve worked for smart and good people, and they’ve been willing to share. Most have given me some stretch assignments that required me to work in my ZoPD, and then feedback to learn from the outcomes.  And I would ask them along the way. I’ve also learned from collaborative assignments, working and learning together. But mostly I’ve learned from my close colleagues. For example, with my ITA colleagues, we have a chat channel open, and we’re regularly pointing things out, asking each other questions, and in general staying linked both professionally and personally.

Q3. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from courses, research or investigation, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you learnt from reading on the web, reading books or attending courses)

I read, a  lot.  I’m not only reading things pointed to via my social network (both professional and personal interests), but I use the library.  I seldom take courses any more, both having developed my own learning skills and from plain hubris, but when I do I try to follow the instructions, extend the implications to  my own experience, and see if I think I can apply them or ask about the barriers I am anticipating.  But I really try to alternate my pleasure reading with reading that advances my understanding (here are a Deeper eLearning reading list and a Revolution reading list).  I write book reviews as a way to reflect on my learning (e.g. an article that points to two), but even for myself I try to take notes and look for the implications.

Q4. What‘s your top advice for someone who wishes to develop faster and learn complex skills in modern workplaces?  

Stay curious, my friends.  Seriously, as a general mindset I think that a continuing interest in what’s going on is essential.  I strongly believe in personal responsibility for learning, and that means not only doing it, but reflecting.  Meta-Learning, or Learning to Learn, is a crucial focus and area to track.  Then, several specific steps. I like my colleague Harold Jarche’s Seek-Sense-Share model for Personal Knowledge Mastery. I think experimenting with different media, and working out how to manage the flow of information is critical.  Given that learning is action and reflection, I think experimentation and reflection are a crucial part of self-learning.  Experiment with different ways to represent your understanding: write, diagram, make an audio or video file.   Look for links.  And then share your reflections on your learning, and your learning to learn. Be concrete about what you think your learning processes are, and look at how others learn.

Ok, so that’s how I learn, how about  you?

Showing my age, er, experience

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I’ve been reading What the Dormouse Said (How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry), and it’s bringing back some memories.  Ok, so most of this stuff is older than I am, but there are a few connections, so it’s reminiscing time.  I’ve said some of this before, I believe, so feel free to wander on.  This is me just thinking aloud.

I was taking some computer science classes because I’d found out that biology was rote memorization and cut-throat medical (which I did  not want to do; I was hoping for marine bio), and a buddy was doing it.  Given that I was at UCSD at the time, I naturally learned  UCSD Pascal (as well as Fortran, which I fortunately forgot almost immediately, and Mixal likewise). I enjoyed algorithms, however, and could solve problems. I also was enchanted with AI (despite my first prof).  And I was  tutoring for some extra pocket money, math and science (even classes I hadn’t taken yet!).

Then I got a job doing the computer support for the office that did the tutoring (literally carrying decks of cards in Algol to run through the computer center). And a light went off; computers for learning!  There was no major then at my school, but there was a program to design my own major, and I found a couple of professors willing to serve as my advisors  (thank you, Hugh Mehan and Jim Levin). They even let me work on a project with them (email for classroom discussion, circa 1978; we had ARPANET, the predecessor to the internet).  It eventually even got published as a journal article.

I called all over the country, trying to find someone who needed a person interested in computer learning.  I even interviewed at Xerox PARC with John Seely Brown, courtesy of Tom Malone (I didn’t get the job; they wanted something I’d done but I didn’t know their term for it!).  After a small job doing some statistical work for a research project, I managed to get a job designing and programming educational computer games for DesignWare (you can still play some of  the products here, the magic of  the internet).  We went from Basic to Forth (for speed and small size), though I later moved away from coding with the demise of HyperCard ;).

And the main connection to the cool stuff, besides the interview at PARC, was visiting the West Coast Computer Faire.  It was cool in and of itself, but there I met David Suess, who along with Bill Bowman was starting Spinnaker, a company to do home educational software.  DesignWare had been doing games to go along with publisher offerings, and I was pushing  the home market.  After a conversation, I introduced David to my boss Jim Schuyler (Sky) and off we went. As a reward, I got to do FaceMaker. Eventually, DesignWare started doing it’s own titles, and I also did Spellicopter and Creature Creator before I realized I wanted to go back to grad school.

Along the way I also read Byte magazine and tracked efforts like SmallTalk and folks like Alan Kay.  I’ve subsequently had the pleasure to meet him, as well as  Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson, so I’ve somewhat closed the loop on those heady days.  There’s much more between then and now, but that’s enough for one post. And most of my counterculture experiences were behind me by that time, so I didn’t really get a chance to see those connections, but it was an exciting time, and a great exposure to the possibilities.

Top 10 Tools for Learning 2016

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It’s that time again: Jane Hart is running her 2016 (and 10th!) Top 100 Tools for Learning poll. It’s a valuable service, and points out some interesting things and it’s interesting to see the changes over time.  It’s also a way to see what others are using and maybe find some new ideas.  She’s now asking that you categorize them as Education, Training & Performance Support, and/or Personal Learning & Productivity.  All  of mine fall in the latter category, because my performance support tools are productivity tools!  So here’re my votes, FWIW:

Google Search is, of course, still my top tool. I’m looking up things several if not many times a day. It’s often a gateway to Wikipedia, which I heavily rely on, but a number of times I find other sources that are equally valuable, such as research or practice sites that have some quality inputs.

Books are still a major way I learn. Yes, I check out books from the library and read them.  I also acquire and read them on my iPad, such as Jane’s great  Modern Workplace Learning.  In my queue is Jane Bozarth’s  Show Your Work.  

Twitter is a  go-to. I am pointed to many serendipitously interesting things, and of course I point to things as well. The learning chats I participate in are another way twitter helps.  Tweetdeck is my twitter tool; columns are a must.

Skype  is a tool I use for communicating with folks to get things done, but also to have conversations (e.g. with my ITA colleagues), whether chat or voice.

Facebook  is also a way I stay in touch with friends and colleagues (those colleagues that I also consider friends; Facebook is more a personal learning tool than  a business tool for me).

LinkedIn  is a way to stay in touch with people, and in particular the  L&D Revolution group is where I want to keep the dialog alive about the opportunity. The articles in LinkedIn  are occasionally of interest too, and it’s always an education to see who wants to link ;).

WordPress is my blogging tool (where you’re at right now), and it’s a way I think ‘out loud’ and the feedback I get is a wonderful way to learn.  Things that eventually appear in presentations and writing typically appear here first, and some of the work I do for others manifests here (typically anonymized).

Word  is my go-to writing tool, and while I use Pages at times too (e.g. if I’m traveling with my iPad), Word is my industrial strength tool.  Writing forces me to get concrete about my thinking.

Omnigraffle  is as always  my diagramming tool, and it’s definitely a way I express and refine my thinking.  Obviously, you’ll see my diagrams here, but also in presentations and articles/chapters/books. And, of course, my mindmaps.

Keynote  is my presentation creating tool. I sometimes  have to export to PowerPoint, but Keynote is where I work natively.  It helps me turn my ideas from diagrams and/or writing into a story to tell with visual support.

So those are my ‘learning’ tools, for now. Some are ‘content’, some are social media, some are personal representational tools, but reading and talking with others and representing my own thinking are  major learning activities for me.

 

Changing Culture: Scaling Up Excellence

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I’ve found myself    picking up books about how to change culture, as it seems to be the big barrier to a successful revolution.  I’ve finished a quick read of  Scaling Up Excellence, am in the midst of Change the Culture, Change the Game, and have Reinventing Organizations and Organize for Complexity (the latter two recommended by my colleague Harold Jarche) on deck.  Here are my notes on the first.

Scaling Up Excellence is the work of two Stanford professors who have looked for years at what makes organizations succeed, particularly when they need to grow, or seed a transformation.  They’ve had the opportunity to study a wide variety of companies, most as success stories, but they do include some cautionary tales as well.  Fortunately, this doesn’t read like an academic book, and while it’s not equipped  with formulas, there are overarching principles that have been extracted.

The overarching principle is that scaling is “a ground war, not an air war”.  What they mean is that you can’t make a high level decision and expect change to happen.  It requires hard work in the trenches.  Leaders have to go in, figure out what needs to change, and then lead that change.  Using a religious metaphor, they distinguish between Buddhist and Catholic approaches, where you’re either wanting everyone to follow the same template, or modify it to their unique situation.  Some organizations need to replicate a particular customer experience (think fast food), whereas others will need to be more accommodating to unique situations (think high-end retailers).

There are some principles around scaling, such as getting mental buy-in, helping people see the bigger picture and how the near term necessities are tied into that, and that going slow initially may help things go better. An interesting one, to me, is that accountability is a key factor; you can’t have folks sit on the side lines, and no slackers (let alone those who undermine).

Another suite of principles include cutting the cognitive load to getting things done the right way, mixing together emotional issues with clever approach, connecting people. One important element is of course allegiance, where people believe in the organization  and it’s clear the organization  is also believing in the people.  No one’s claiming this is easy, but they have lots of examples and guidance.

One really neat idea that I haven’t heard before was the concept of a pre-mortem, that is, imagining a period some time in the future and asking “why did it go right”, and also “why did it go wrong”.  A nice way to distance  oneself from the moment and reflect effectively on a proposed plan. If separate groups do this, the inputs can help address potential risks, and emphasize useful actions.

I worry a bit that it’s still ‘old school’ business, (more on that after I finish the book I’m currently reading and look to the two ‘new thinking’ books), but they do seem to be pushing the values of doing meaningful work and sharing  it.  A bit discursive, but overall I thought it insightful.

#itashare

Inspiring good work

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Yesterday (as I post this), the legendary Tom Reeves  capped a great session at #AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology).  The session started with a passionate rationale by Dr.  Ali Carr-Chellman about why we should worry about boys and school.  Frankly, we’re not connecting school to their lives!  She was followed by Dr. David Wiley, who explained how his passion for Open Educational Resources wasn’t just ethical, but practical.  Dr. Tom Reeves presented a story which serendipitously integrated the two previous sessions into a coherent whole.

Tom was presenting the case for educational design research (aka design-based research).  By analogy to Atul Gawande’s work, and an example about the rapid uptake of anesthesia and slow uptake of antiseptics, Tom made the case how adoptions of innovations depend on factors of relevance to audiences, ease of use by practitioners, and time-frames of results.

His point was that doing some educational research is doable, fruitful, but has little impact. His desire, instead, was to have impact and do the hard yards to achieve it.  Design research works by focusing on meaningful outcomes, going deep to figure it out, and reflecting on theory as an outcome. This is in opposition to research on small points that can easily be conducted, generates significant results, but doesn’t get applied.

I have to say that I’ve been a fan of this approach since reading about it (and have been practicing it even before it had a label), but it’s nice to have this respected figure across decades of research help point the way.  We can, and should, be following his example. If we’re not shooting to have an impact, what are we doing?  It’s not the easy path, but it’s the right one.  If you really care, you should be going this way. If you don’t, why are you here?

iPads do make sense for schools

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Donald Clark (the UK one) generally writes great posts: insightful and irreverent, and consequently fun. I like that he is willing to counter the prevailing wisdom with good research. I hope to someday meet him. However, his recent post against iPads in the classroom seemed to me to miss a couple of points.  Not that I fully disagree with him, but that I think that some elaboration might shed some light.  Note: I’m starting by focusing on K-6, not middle school or higher ed. He does acknowledge the potential value for young kids, so we’re not quibbling too much, but I still want to make a few points.

He first claims that they don’t support writing.  Yes, that’s true, the touchscreen isn’t the same as a keyboard.  However, my colleague Scott Marvel has filmed lots of kids with iPads and he tells me they don’t have much trouble using the touchscreen (they’re not highly capable with regular keyboards at young ages), they use speech to text as well, and also take freehand notes too.  So writing isn’t horribly impeded on iPads for younger kids.  Further,  writing shouldn’t necessarily be done in the classroom anyway. Learning to type, and heavy writing should be done offline, and shared for feedback in class.  It’s a waste of valuable teacher time, when they could be facilitating meaningful engagement.

I also note that he says they don’t work for creative work, and that they should be creating, not consuming. I generally agree on the creation aspect (while noting that flipping the classroom and getting reading and tutorials done at home isn’t bad and the latter isn’t passive consumption), but note that he’s missed one of the big content creation aspects that smaller devices support: taking pictures and filming videos.  It may be that iPod Touches are even better for K-6, but running around and filming with a tablet (particularly an iPad mini, which may be optimal for K-6) is better than a laptop.  And I’ll bet that the video and photo editing tools on tablets are just the simple tools that kids really need; they just need basic capabilities.

I note that I didn’t buy my iPad for content consumption: when it was announced I wrote it off for just that reason. However, between the time it was announced and became available, I saw how I would use it to be more productive: creating not consuming.  And I bought one the first day it came out for that reason.

Let me also elaborate on the size point.  Elliot Soloway many years ago made the point that laptops were the wrong form-factor for young kids, and he started using Palm Pilots.  I think it’s still the case that a laptop isn’t right for kids, and that touch screens make much more sense than keyboards and touch pads or mice.  There are plenty of people noticing how 2 year olds are able to use iPads!

Donald also talks about coding, and it  is a shame that there isn’t a HyperCard equivalent for the iPad (though Infinite Canvas may be such, tho’ it’d need educational pricing).  However, something like Scratch for the iPad would be a real opportunity (precluded by Apple, unfortunately, I wonder if there’s an Android version).  And coding K-6 other than scratch doesn’t make a lot of sense.

He says that iPads are problems for teachers, and I’m somewhat sympathetic. However, too often I’ve seen instances where teachers weren’t properly prepared.  For instance, something like GoClass (caveat: partner), while still a bit instructivist, could scaffold teachers initially until they began to see the opportunities.  And there needs to be mobile management software to deal with the issues. However, I’m hard pressed to believe iPads are any  more fragile than laptops.

Now, for higher grades, I take the point.  My lad and lass both have MacBook Pros, though they each also have an iPod touch (lad’s is my old iPhone without a sim card) that they use.  Note that they do not take the laptops to school in most cases.  I think that a nice augment for mobile work, getting out of the classroom (please!) is much better facilitated with a tablet or pocketable (smartphone/PDA) than a laptop.  And even for collaborative group work, sharing a tablet is better than hovering around a laptop.  If necessary, they could be using a bluetooth keyboard when needed.  So while I know this is hard to justify on a cost basis, I’d probably argue for an iPad or pocketable for class, and a desktop or laptop for home.

Less related, he makes the side claim that employees don’t use iPads. I’m amazed at the number that turn up at workplace learning conferences, and in meetings.  They seem pretty ubiquitous, so I don’t buy this claim.  Yes, they may be older, and some folks are using netbooks or MacBook Airs, but I see plenty of folks with iPads equipped with keyboard cases. I keep a bluetooth keyboard for when I’m cranking (e.g. writing on an airplane), but frankly just for quick notes the touchscreen keyboard works good enough for meetings, and that ‘all day’ battery really makes a difference.

And I’ll add on one other benefit for mobile devices: the ability to do contextual work. These devices can be context aware, and do things because of where you are.  This is yet to be really capitalized on, but provides a real opportunity.

I think tablets are only going to get more capable, and already make more sense in the classroom than laptops.  Teachers should be seeing how to use them, even at higher levels, and save the high-powered writing and editing out of the classroom.  Laptops make sense for learners, but not in the classroom. In the classroom, smaller and more versatile devices make more sense.

Learning There

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A respected colleague recently suggested Andy Clark’s Being There as a read to characterize the new views of cognition, so I checked it out.  The book covers the new emerging views of cognition, grounded in the connectionist revolution and incorporating a wide variety of neural and robotic studies. The interesting thing to me are the implications for learning and instruction.

The book makes the case that the way we think is not only heavily tied to our contexts, but that we co-construct the world in ways that affect our thinking in profound ways.  Studies across economic behavior, animal cognition, simulation studies, and more are integrated to make the point that they way we think is very different than the models of conscious minds sitting in meat vehicles.  Instead, we’re very driven from below and outside, and our conscious thinking is rare, hard, and language based.  Moreover, the constructs we create to think affect our thinking, making it easier. We automate much not only through learning, but we externalize.  And, our representations and understanding are very much constructed ‘on the fly’ in each new situations, as opposed to existing abstract and robust.

This isn’t easy reading.  Clark is a philosopher of mind, and covers much complex research and deep neuroscience.  The emergent picture, however, is of a mind very different than the cognitivist model.  I’m grateful that while I pursued my PhD in Cog Psych, the research going on in our co-shared lab by Rumelhart and McClelland on connectionist networks sensitized me to this viewpoint, and Hutchins work on Cognition in the Wild was similarly taking place at the same time.   Despite the challenge, there are important reasons to get our minds around this way of thinking.

The notion that providing abstract knowledge will lead to any meaningful outcome has already pretty much been debunked both empirically and theoretically.  What these models seem to suggest is that what can and will work is deep scaffolded practice and guided reflection, based upon a situated cognition. For other reasons, this is the model that Collins and Brown had in Cognitive Apprenticeship, and now we’ve a more solid philosophical basis for it.  (I also think that there are rejoinders to Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, and Anderson, Reder, & Simon; discussing how language, including writing, is social, and that iterations between abstract models and meaningful practice is guided reflection.)

This model suggests that language is our differentiator, and that much of our higher level cognition is mediated through language.  There’s a reason consciousness feels like a dialog.  Much of our processing is beneath consciousness, and things we monitor and develop through language become compiled away inaccessible to language.

The point, to me, is that the activity-based learning model I’ve proposed has both bottom up grounding in new cognitive models, theoretical framing from anchored instruction and social constructivism, as well as empirical validity from apprenticeships and work-place learning. We need to start aligning our learning design to the cognitive realities.

Mentoring

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I was talking today with an organization that has mentoring as a very core feature of their culture, and it got me reflecting on the fantastic luck I’ve had in my career.  Even before working, I had some great teachers, and then many folks have helped shape me through my job experience.

Dick Bergeron was a 12th grade teacher at SPHS who really helped me understand a different path to learning and thinking. He did what I now know to be reciprocal teaching, had us take turns talking about what we were learning from our reading, and discussing it, with him facilitating our reflection.

I got a job while I was in college at UCSD, maintaining the computer records for the office that did tutoring on campus, and Carmel Myers and Ken Majer helped me learn how to be professional (particularly when I screwed up).

Seeing the connection between computers and learning via that job, I designed my own major in college, and with the guidance of Hugh Mehan and Jim Levin learned a lot about what constituted good research. They also lived what great student development was.

In my first job, designing and programming educational computer games for DesignWare, Jim Schuyler and Lesley Czechowicz helped me learn quite a bit about how organizations run and what good management is.

I returned to grad school at UCSD after a summer working with Ken Majer again, and Don Norman patiently helped me rediscover and expand my understanding of research and cognition, particularly the application thereof.  Don is also a great role model for top-notch critical and innovative thinking.  At the Learning Research & Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, Leona Schauble furthered my understanding of detailed research and development while guiding my post-doctoral fellowship.

At the University of New South Wales, where I took up an academic position, Paul Compton served to model what a wise leader really looks like.  When I stepped away from the University, first Ron Watts at Open Net and then Rim Keris at Access CMC helped me take steps in understanding a strategic approach to business.

Jim Schuyler brought me back to the US, where he again mentored me on team leadership.  He also introduced me to Joe Miller, who has served to really help me understand the next level of organizational strategy.

Since then, my business partners, Charlie Gillette at Knowledge Anywhere and Mohit Bhargava at LearningMate, have helped me learn much about business models and the art of the deal.  And my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance – Jay Cross, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, and Charles Jennings – have taught me a lot about working as an independent and together.

These are the ones where I had an extended period of time with, but many other folks have served as models and provided assistance: Ellen Wagner and Marcia Conner are two that come to mind, and many more I’m forgetting, as well as many friends who’ve shared good times (and bad).  Naturally, my parents had a wee  bit of influence as well.  And I’ve been doubly fortunate that many of these folks have remained in touch.

There certainly is an art to mentoring, though it can be developed, and I reckon there’re also some skills to being a good mentee.  I hope I’ve been able to do some of the former, and not do the latter too  badly.

I certainly still have lots to learn, but I’m exceptionally grateful to these folks.  Many kudos to them, but of course all faults of the end product remain with the author ;).  I think increasingly we can and should be continually mentoring those we care about, and mutually mentoring each other.  Here’s to learning!