Flash For Learning

It looks like I will have a rare (for me, anyway) opportunity to have an hour or two of face time with Dan Pink tomorrow in downtown Chicago along with what I assume is 3-4 other people. This has been “brewing” (har har) over the past several days, so in addition to re-reading his books, I’ve been also scouring the internets for other writings (and speeches he wrote for Al Gore, but I’m having trouble finding attributions). I know we’ll be talking about his current book. I’m hopeful he’s going to talk about ideas for a next book. If I have the opportunity to ask him open questions, I want to ask questions that either challenge his views or open up something new.

I’ve been compiling them over the past couple of days, but if you have a question, PLEASE leave it as a comment on this thread or twitter me (mrch0mp3rs) today.

Here’s some of my questions:

• A bedrock of the arguments presented in Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind seems to be an enabling force in Johnny Bunko: that as a nation “…we create greater wealth, deliver more and better goods and services, and positively kick butt on innovation.” (Reason Magazine, 2001) I think there are lot of people who would agree with that statement.But in the context of a large disparity of wealth so large that by just one measure, “top executives averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, over 364 times the pay of the average American worker, a calculation based on data from an Associated Press survey of 386 Fortune 500 companies…” (Fair Economy, 2007), can that same wealth generated by the US as a nation also be disabling for US workers? If so, how can American workers (knowledge workers or otherwise) mitigate or reconcile the lessons from Johnny Bunko?
• The lessons expressed (and certainly the story) in Johnny Bunko focuses mainly on knowledge workers. There are a lot of “blue collar” workers in the GenX/GenY/Millenial audience that Johnny Bunko is written for. For people working a retail, manufacturing job, how can these lessons be actualized? And if these aren’t the lessons for hands-on or front-line workers, then what lessons should these people adopt?
• Your books all address the GenX/GenY/Millenial audience as they are entering or already are in the workforce. The secondary audience seems to be everyone else, which in the corporate but non-tech company world, is a demographic that Millenials by and large reports to. There is a wealth of information about how GenX/GenY prefers to work, what they value, etc. There is little information for my managers on how to manage me. If Johnny Bunko can teach me about how to approach my career, what can managers learn about how to manage me?
• Online learning has opened the doors to a broader population of students, but the business of online education is in decline, as stock prices for American Intercontinental University and University of Phoenix are in steep decline and have been for the past year or two. Where online universities are booming are in the traditional brick and mortar universities which establish online programs, such as Pepperdine’s doctoral programs in Education. At the same time that the knowledge is being released for free, like MIT, Berkeley and Harvard classes shared via iTunes; the college textbook industry is consolidating, concentrating in print which runs up the cost of college texts while at the same time placing DRM on the online “courses” they publish for the online portals of institutions. Do you think there is a danger to innovation by the concentration of “official” media and by the restriction of its use?

I admit it, I’ve been a big fan of Dan Pink since the book came out. Masie just posted the very well-produced video of his keynote at the Learning 2007 conference.

One of my favorite non-fiction titles of the last three years is “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” by Dan Pink. It’s like the quickest read you’ll ever go through and you won’t put it down once you start it. It’s provocative.

Pink uses the brain as a metaphor for the economy. Left-brain vs. Right-brain is mostly a myth, but each half does handle tasks differently. Left-brain activities used to matter a lot, but their value has decreased as emerging markets have grown more efficient and effective at the logic-based tasks. What has been undervalued and what provides a better, more competitive opportunity is in the creative, big-picture, holistic skills that are hard to outsource and hard to automate. Empathy as a business model, as an example. To survive in the economy today, you need to go where others can’t — Design.

Design as a Competency

Utility + Significance = Consumption

In a world where there is incredible abundance, utility is everywhere and easy to satisfy. So to differentiate, you have to focus on significance, of which one component is Design. Charter schools are now teaching kids through Design, smuggling in math, science and history. At a larger level, you see a merger of art, design and business training. Pink states in his book (and in person) that the MFA is the new MBA. There are lots of joint programs in the academic arena between elite MBA programs collaborating with leading MFA programs at different schools (Pink).

If Pink is right… what impact does this have on learning, education and training? What would you do differently than what you (we) are already doing as a learning/education/training implementer?

Activity: Walk around for a week with a notebook and pen and journal all the experiences of great design you encounter — and all the experiences you have with bad design.

Story as a Competency

Facts still matter, but the ability to put facts in context is becoming more valuable than pulling information together quickly. When facts are free, the story becomes a market differentiator.

Meaning

In the last 50 years, the US GDP has tripled, but according to empirical studies, satisfaction has remained stagnant. This leads to the “Democratization of Self-Visualization.”

Activity: Picture yourself at 90. Set aside a half-hour to picture yourself at age 90, and reflect on your accomplishments.

Symphony

We tend in business to focus on “focus,” but there’s a growing need for people to see “the big picture.” Bosses don’t always know who the “star performers” are, but peers always do. Cognitive testing of star performers show there is only one competency that is correlated to performance — and that is the ability to see the big picture.

Even dyslexics overdevelop abilities to compensate for their inability to transpose the written word.

Empathy

Empathy is interesting because it’s hard to outsource or automate, so it provides an opportunity for competitive advantage. Customer Service is an area that can propel growth because it allows for a company to compete on the strength of empathy. Empathy can also be used to solve problems of Design, by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and try and work with your products.

Activity: Take 20 pictures, put it into 20 slides, at 20 seconds each, automated to convey new ideas very quickly - a pecha-kucha (from Japan and spreading now)

Pink’s pecha-kucha is about Manga and its use in the business world (in Japan). Pink’s new book is a Manga on career productivity. The question he’s looking to answer

• 1980s - What color is your parachute?
• 1990s - Who moved my Cheese?
• 2000s - New kind of workers, Pink’s book answers: “WTF?”

Brilliant!!! Brilliant!!!