Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the tag “Learning”

19 Aug 2008

Mindfulness: Learning in the Task

Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj by Asif Akbar

I had a riding lesson today. My family is mad-keen and has been having lessons for many months now. I wanted to go as I look for activities where I can completely lock my focus onto something. Enforced mindfulness I suppose. My colleague Jane and I have had a couple of discussions on the need for a switch off by completely switching onto something else. She gets this switch off relaxation from snowboarding. To paraphrase terribly, I think she said something like ‘you tend to concentrate if you’re hurtling down a hill and likely to kill yourself if you don’t’

The Social and Information Web Drug III

An observation from Slate.com that adds item 12. to my splurge on the above topic (see these posts from

Money Symbols Abstract 4 - svilen001

earlier in the week on the Social and Information Web Drug):

12. Social media is the new provider of social currency

Defining social currency as ‘The phrase, which comes from sociology, is often used to describe the information we acquire and then trade—or give away—to start, maintain, and nurture relationships with our fellow humans’

Christopher Carfi has a great post on social currency that expands further

So, particularly the tools of social media that aggregate/ channel/ filter and weight information are providing multiple opportunities to socially interact by trading ever more pertinent, timely and (to the individual hoping to interact) valuable information.

Those face to face ‘watercooler moments’ are being replaced by snipping content, feeding, streaming and adding to comments…..

Posted in Communication, Learning, Social Networks, Writing and tagged Communication, FriendFeed, Learning, Life streaming, Social Media | Leave a comment

06 Aug 2008

The Personality of Change

Blue Planet by Dez Pain

The Anatomy or Structure of Change. How does change happen? How does it last? Whether for you as an individual, or for a team of individuals in a company.

I struggled with the title because the drivers of a successful change seem to come from many different areas. The structural shift. The psychological shift. The habits and routine shifts. etc.

First, a definition. I see successful change as being the thing that happens to make you move from one state to another state; that state then remains and becomes the norm.

I redrafted from my initial attempt at this post where I had considered that successful change was pre-planned to achieve a desired/ better state. I believe that as much can be learnt from change happening for the worst. So that the new state of affairs is less desirable than pre-change.

As an initial brainstorm of the various aspects or elements of the personality of change:

The theory: mentally I start considering the process of change in a systematic, paper-based way. It can be planned and structured and implemented.
The quick win: there are immediate rewards in the case of change to a desired state. Immediate benefits are seen by those involved to motivate into starting routine and repetition.
The buy-in: reality is that the mental acceptance and then physical behaviours of those impacted have to align with the new future state for it to be considered successful.
The language: language shifts. The new state is articulated as a ‘done deal’. The new language associated is used (stiltedly at first) by those involved, but more confidently as time goes on. This seems to have a viral effect.

To be continued.