Godin, Seth – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/05/01

Jean Lievins: YouTube (20:17) Seth Godin et al on The Future of Learning & the Death of Rote Education

The Future of Learning — the Death of Rote Education

Ericsson put together an inspiring 20-minute video promoting its “Networked Society” and “Future of Learning” movements. It’s worth watching whether or not you work in education because it makes some poignant statements about issues that affect our society as a whole.

Here are 5 quick take-aways:

1) Instead of molding students to fit into the educational system, we should be adapting systems to address the different needs of students.

2) The concept of school used to be synonymous with access to information, now they are no longer the same thing.

3) Answers are everywhere, especially online. So, a teacher’s job is to point growing minds towards the right questions. We should teach people to solve interesting problems, not to memorize answers to problems we’ve already solved.

4) Nobody takes standardized tests for a living. Learning should prepare you to cope with life’s surprises, but traditional education prepares you to cope with certainty. There is no certainty.

5) There is no virtual substitute for universities. They provide an essential space in which teachers and students learn to solve problems, debate issues, and develop passions together. However, online learning and technology are not only improving the traditional university experience, they are providing high quality education to those who did not have access to it before. On a global level.

2010/09/222010/09/22

Worth a Look: Seth Godin’s Blog

Blog Wisdom, Worth A Look

The forever recession

There are two recessions going on.

One is gradually ending. This is the cyclical recession, we have them all the time, they come and they go. Not fun, but not permanent.

The other one, I fear, is here forever. This is the recession of the industrial age, the receding wave of bounty that workers and businesses got as a result of rising productivity but imperfect market communication.

. . . . . .

The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and a lot of change. What it's not doing is providing millions of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it's not going to.

Fast, smart and flexible are embraced by the network. Linchpin behavior. People and companies we can't live without (because if I can live without you, I'm sure going to try if the alternative is to save money).

The sad irony is that everything we do to prop up the last economy (more obedience, more compliance, cheaper yet average) gets in the way of profiting from this one.

2002/10/052009/12/04

Review: Unleashing the Ideavirus

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Education (General)

Gold Collar Guide to Fame and Fortune,

October 5, 2002

Seth Godin

Bottom line on this book is clear: the path to fame and fortune for “gold collar workers” (a term I first saw used by Robert Carkhuff in “The Exemplar: The Exemplary Performer in an Age of Productivity (Human Resource Development Press, 1994) consists of four parts: 1) establish a personal brand name by placing before the marketplace a *free* capstone idea, “manifesto” or other form of self-expression; 2) have a web-site with forwarding email that allows anyone who likes your idea to download it, read it, share it; 3) work hard at getting your idea to a few powerful “sneezers” (the author has an alliance with Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point” and also of the foreword to this book)–pay them if you have to; and 4) let the money flow in from the post-branding offers for speeches, consulting, and new books.I was initially inclined to give this book only 4 stars because it is not a traditional book with a lot of references (it does have an acceptable index) but I realized that the author not only accomplishes all he sets out to do, but the book is a real value in terms of both its financial cost, and time cost–reading this book certainly suggested to me several actionable ideas that will make my web site and my efforts to spread the idea of intelligence reform better. While the author is enamoured of “Fast Company” (the magazine) and works hard to pay back some favors in his text, the various web sites that he mentions, including Epinions, Planetfeedback, and Enfish, are generally relevant and therefore not objectionable.

There are two competing ideas in the book, both worthy of note–first, that the public attention span is so limited that most of the money is made in the first release/first sales period, and then one should move on; and second, that persistence pays and the real money is to be had from the post-branding streams of revenue. I believe this stems from the juxtaposition of how companies make money if they have the wherewithall to to churn the market with a lot of new offerings; and how individuals make money by establishing personal brand names–in general the author is strongest when dealing with what single individuals can and should do to take what they are really good at, package it, put it out (free), and then systematically reap residual financial benefits.