Serendipity and Learning

After we have acquired the iPad, it has proved to be a boon in the education space for the little ones. There are so many interesting apps on the iPad - like Science360, Ascent (space shuttle), Galaxy walk, Colour uncovered, Morris Lessmore and the flying books. There is of course a good and bad side to it. Good, obviously, because the best way for learning to happen is like osmosis - while you are doing something the learning is a byproduct. And if it happens while doing something you are keen to do, that you find interesting (which is stating the obvious), nothing like it. Thus it is that the iPad and the internet have opened the curiosities of the little one like no other. That being said, there is a downside. There is a significant chance that school will relegate itself to be "uninteresting" and a "chore". This is something we will have to guard or better still, work around, I guess. More later!

Take a look at this wonderful advertisement. It beautifully replicates a website into a physical design through the 90 odd seconds that it runs. First of all it is creative - almost burns the light bulb in your head - and makes you go - why did I not think of that. Second, truly, the internet, like life is what you make of it. Third, it is quite inspiring when you come to think of it. But as a creative concept, this has appealed to me for a longish time. We had attempted to do something similar for a website as part of a project at work. We worked on getting the entire website down a book. The whole idea was to make the website "physical". So, literally you would have dropdowns that would need to be folded back and then little windows would pop up as part of the book and so forth. Pages would cut like tabs on the website and would take you back and forth and so on. The project did go through, though to a time crunch in the end, we had to cut down many of the "feat

There are books and there are books. There are Wren and Martins for grammar and there is "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". There a countless dry and melancholic books for Finance and there is Principles of Corporate Finance by Brearley and Myers. Ditto for marketing - where Kotler is still one of the best books to read. And then you have Robbins on Organizational Behaviour. There are a million books on programming and then there is the Dummies series or an even better Head First series. These thoughts came to my mind as I skim through Thinking, Fast and Slow - which is perhaps one of the best books I have ever read on psychology. There are many other books, but very few like this one by Daniel Kahneman that teach it so nicely and lucidly. What book would you rather read? Or write, for that matter?

I saw this post yesterday at The Domino Project on a new e-book - they are giving away for free named Flinch. More than the name, the cover made me curious. What the hell is this about. The preview on Amazon was superb. (It resonated with something I was doing!) And instead of me expounding it, go download this glorious ebook on Kindle - Flinch which does it so well . For some strange reason, it is free. So, dont waste your time and go download and read it (it works in India as well). I have started reading it and the book is lively and punchy!

A significant part of my job goes around answering the question, "How does one increase domain knowledge?" There are no easy answers to this, but there is a short answer and that answer is experience. Now experience, does not mean standing the non-strikers end in a cricket match all day long- though that too is undoubtedly experience. Experience means, real, solid, experience of doing things. In short practice. There is no shortcut. Read that again. There is no shortcut except putting in real solid hours of practice. Read this story of 2 pilots and how a simple error made things go catastrophically wrong. Reading through the entire thing will only make you realize that the pilots, a) disregarded some common protocol and b) substituted it with the wrong protocol and c) failed to identify checkpoints and take appropriate action. Why did that happen? Because, they were never exposed to a particular situation. Now they are flying planes - that carry people - so their trai

Imagine you have a choice of trainings. One is a training format with teams competing against each other in predetermined subjects in a league format. Each team "owner" gets to select a captain, coach and then they build their team from there on. From that point on, it is the teams responsibility to build their skills so that they could win the competition. The members of the team were purely volunteers - so there was no conscription. Contrast this with a training where you attend as individuals, show up for classes and a stick hanging over your head in case you miss a class. The mode of instruction is classes - normal facilitator led sessions spread over a few days. At the end you give an exam which decided if you pass or fail. Imagine that both of these have a spread of about 6-8 weeks. Which one would you choose and why? Sure, the same commitment is required for both and the people who are committed in one will also be committed to the other. But dont you think

When I was a little boy, I had the chance to go to a traditional mantra class. Like Bal Vihar classes organized by the Chinmaya mission or Carnatic music classes, the teaching was purely oral. Our Guruji explicitly prohibited the use of books - as he said it impeded the learning - which placed a lot of emphasis of intonations and pronunciations and rhythm. He was able to resist it so far - books were available very easily and so the books made inroads into our class. And he was right - the books did impede the learning for some (the older ones who could read Devanagri). That was temporarily though. Later on, they got used to using the books when they had a doubt or some such. And for me it proved useful when I wanted to pick up the threads of the mantra where I had left it off. If I did not have to access to a book, that learning would have been lost forever. Why I say this is because I am sure when books first made their appearance, people reliant on traditional methods must have

Push cars is one of the new game app on the Apple Store. We downloaded this quite by chance. It takes off where "Unblock me" (video above) and its parking counterpart (same game using cars) left. Myself and the little one have been playing this with gusto for the past few weeks (except somewhere during the iOS5 upgrade, the game went kaput). There are versions of physical unblock mes available - and are used quite widely in schools as part of their co-curricular (usually paid separately) activities. Where push cars scores is making the whole damn thing so mobile, and just so simple. The bad cars have to crash while the good cars have to escape. Every city introduces a new car (good or bad) with slightly complex features and keeping it all in mind, one has to ensure that the good cars escape and the bad cars crash. The levels are not simple. And require quite a bit of contrarian thinking to make it work. And yes, they are far better than mindless single person sho

The little one and the father prepared for yet another story session. A common routine for us is that every now and then, the little one will bring something he has created - a drawing, a model or something - and we have to create a story out of those things. The story usually has no limits - you can concoct the most implausible story with those things. This time it was two small ship models - armed to the teeth with dazzling weaponry and bristling with technological capability that has not yet been invented or perhaps even conceived of. "Here are the two ships. Which one do you want?" he says, offering me something with no real choice. I take it. "I want to be the good ship. Now tell me what do you want to be?" "I will also be the good ship." "What? If both ships are good, then what story will we make?" I smiled at the observation. We did make a story with no "bad", but he had stumbled on a very basic question, had he not!

A few years back, I had the great opportunity to sit in one of the trainings conducted by this “one man army”. He blew us away by his knowledge, his timing and his ability to hold nearly a room full of people with about 10 odd years of technology experience. So, with about 15 people, effectively it came to about 150 years of experience. And he was able to convince us all – regardless of what questions we threw at him – on the subject at hand. The best part of it was that he was not the slick, suave, savvy presenter that you think would do this. His language was quite rusty – not some convent educated fake accented English – he did not use any jargon – he used a lot of common sense and simple examples and in my books, he will perhaps be the best trainer who I have ever trained under. Why? He was able to connect with the audience like no other. No fake smiles, no brotherhood – just pure subject matter expertise – and ability to relate and connect with people and their field of work. Th

I distinctly remember the first training I loved. Perhaps it was on day 1 or day 4 as a management trainee. It was a full day session and run by this very friendly gentleman. I don’t recall the topics that we discussed that day nor do I recall the whole objective of it, but it did make us all feel very good. The exercises they made us do and the way it was structured all made for some really good “feel good” factor. As management trainee, I really thought, I had arrived – as did the others in our batch. And it was done, unconventionally for us at that time – which has now become the new conventional. We were used to classroom seating – this one had conference room seating. We were used to dull drab presentations, this one blew our minds away. And I remember the facilitator had great personality – he could build rapport in an instant and all of us connected with him. There were group exercises and de-briefs and it was a challenge for all us management trainees to outdo the other. Overal

I read and re-read this article multiple times. The camera has been re-imagined, again ! (link via @lukew ) And that too without a megapixel notation next to its name! And it is not too long ago, in this generation, that the camera went digital from analogue. We barely have said goodbye to film cameras, haven’t we? And I purchased my first digital camera in 2000 – and felt good to be part of a digital revolution. The camera was the Sony DSCP something – which gave me a grand 2 megapixel resolution. Today that camera would perhaps command a place in a museum – given its rather chunky design and weight. And now this – the Lytro camera is almost a requiem to SLRs and all those knobs and buttons and things that you needed to create a great picture. Hell. This is crazy is it not. Just a few years back, we saw those chunky keyboards on phones being replaced and now they are all over. Even as we speak, the PC and laptop era is going away - and giving way to the tablet revolution and tho

So, if that is not the way to training people on customer service what is? I have not crystallized on an idea right away, but there are some formative thoughts. But more than that, as a trainer, it is important that a training deliver cutting edge stuff to you. Especially when it comes to senior managers. Usually companies have a culture of service (by and large) - when you train frontline management it is important that we reinforce the culture (how do you do it - therein lies a later post). But as you go higher up, what does one do? What do they expect out of it? What can we give them that we already dont know? Most senior managers would be well read in those usual suspects - the HBRs, the McKinseys and other magazines. So, giving them anything out of any of these publications would be a waste of time for them. And mind you, most of these publications are not necessarily ahead of the curve as much as they are on the curve. So, what constitutes your trainings? How do you get them?

I recently underwent a training on something related to Customers. I forget what it was - Customer Focus or Customer Corner or Diagonal or something. And I came out of it feeling quite lost. The first half an hour into the program I could sense that it was not getting anywhere - but at that point I asked my intuition to stay put and tried to see if I could get through to what the person was going after. After all, an open mind is essential for any learning to happen. So I tried. The examples of exemplary customer service offered were the same. Nokia, Google, Apple, Fedex and Southwest airlines. Well, trainers, grow up. Nokia was big 10 years back. Today it is being chased by Micromax at the lower end and Apple at all other ends. HTC and Samsung have redefined itself and me, a Nokia loyalist myself for many years now switched to Samsung. All around me - friends are opting out of Nokia and its market share is steadily dropping. Hardly an example of great customer service. Apple, ye

Perhaps the one person who has captured the imagination of the learning community in recent times - is an unlikely man. But of course, he has inspired everybody. From rocket scientists to ordinary trainers. I am talking about Steve Jobs - who needs no introduction. What if our vision for trainings were like Steve Jobs vision for Apple? What if our trainings made people go wow when they went through it? What if we could make people wait for our trainings and book it in advance and wait for their turn with bated breath? What if every upgrade of our trainings (and I know most trainings are not upgraded in centuries) made people drool? What if... Thank you Steve!

Try an experiment. Hear this video and see how much of the lyrics you can follow - its a lovely catchy song and all that, but see how much of the lyrics you can follow at first try or second or third.... Now hear the same after seeing the lyrics ... Now try the same with this video (another good song from the same series) And here are the lyrics... Dont know about you, but for me it is far more easier to follow the lyrics once I have read the lyrics!!

The little ones have taken to the iPod like fishes to water. No, I exaggerate. They get only limited time and access to it. I am talking about the iPod touch. The games in it are quite a learning experience. The younger one learnt colours using the iPod - there are a couple of apps - Learn colours with fruits and Learn colours with vegetables. This was quite apparent - a totally new way to play with some learning was bound to be a hit. But the other aspect of this is what I seen in the older one. His drawings and colours have taken a "great leap". The vividness and richness of colour and the levels of details have taken off after he has played a few games on the iPod - especially "Storm in a tea cup". Also, games like "Push Cars" and "Rail Maze" really make you think in different way to arrive at a desired solution. More on this later...but surely the iPod is a great tool for learning. Are your trainings making your people think?

Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences is well known. The intelligences listed are Spatial, Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Naturalistic. I am not sure if Existential intelligence is added as an intelligence or not - the wiki entry sort of confused me. But I suspect that it exists - it almost classifies as spiritual intelligence - or what can be called perhaps a higher state of awareness. I also strongly suspect that there are other intelligences that we are not yet aware of or explored - or perhaps present in too few individuals to be captured at a global level. I dont remember which book I read this in -where it said that as much as we would find a tribal newly introduced to urban life to be fairly stupid - the reverse would be true too. Most of us, removed from our urban habitat will be a complete loss in a village or a tribal settlement. And we attribute much of what we do to our intelligence - yet a lot

When I was at violin class, there was a prodigy alongwith me. He was the teachers pet. He could do anything on the violin - while we lesser mortals struggled. On the face of it, his ability was sheer talent. But, as I grew up, I realized that it was neither talent nor was it self motivation - it was more of practice and discipline. Not taking away anything from the kids or parents (and they both surely did a lot for the child to reach there). If a chlid starts at age 5 - anything - be it violin or music or dance or karate - it is hard for a child to be self motivated. You typically cannot start anything before that - except perhaps swimming or cycling, but age 5 plus is when you can start most things. The one way to be self motivated is when the child people around her do all of these things - which is why in a musical household - the children learn much faster - because the learning not by catching the child and plonking them down in front of a teacher - but they learn by seeing wha

This is essentially a Tam post. Before the Englishmen had their industrial revolution and passed on some skills to the Indians who in turn made gadgets which robbed the Tams of their prized skills. Yes, Tam land was a glorious land - a land where supermaamas and supermaamis walked the earth. But hell, this is a learning blog, what is all this Tam culture doing here? I am trying to imagine if Howard Gardner had to map the skills of Tam to his theory of multiple intelligences, what would have happened? What were the skills expected of an average maama or maami in the 19th century? or early 20th century? Let us try. Take a typical Tam day that begins at 5 am. (Mind you, 530 IS LATE - wake up you stupid fool and find a kick landing on your backside.) I dont know if waking up in the morning is a skill - but before it becomes a habit, it has to be practiced. In a Tam household it is not very difficult considering that even the insects in the house follow the time to a T. And besides

I am not sure what is easier. Working 8 hours at your job or getting the little one to do abacus homework. One is obviously about self motivation and the second is motivating someone else. We have tried different methods - Saam, Daam, Dand and Bhed ! But one thing that is not mentioned in the above 4 is - Competition. What is working now is that me and the little one have a race. I calculate on the calculator and he on the abacus. And both of us are supposed to get the same answer - that is my objective. His objective is more about racing the calculator and me. And is it working? Yes, in limited doses it does work. Empathetic teaching - where he is allowed to take breaks when he wants to and play alongside the competition seems to help more than fervent appeals or telling him about future benefits which he has no clue about. This is the current trick which is working - many other tricks have long outlived their utility. And therein lies an important learning - you can fool the min

A few weeks back, the little one had a show and tell. Now, I am of the firm belief that a show and tell should not be mugged - or rote learnt. Then how to get the child to say what he is supposed to say flawlessly? Here is what worked for me. I gave him the object - in this case a huge envelope look alike on a cardpaper with illustrated stamp, to and from address. And using the prop as a mnemonic, he had to say just a sentence or two on each point. So,he started off from the letter, then came from the top left to bottom right - starting at the stamp, followed by to address and then the from address. It went off like a dream. This was followed by something where he had to speak for a minute on the family. So, we got our points and asked him what would he like to talk on. His thought was a simple one. First about the family as a whole, then its components and what we like to do together. In both the cases, using his thought process made us give him a script that he can never forg

Hand cricket is a form of lazy cricket that I have seen in Bangalore. It may be prevalent in other cities as well, but it was surely was not there while I grew up. (We had something on the lines of book cricket and we used it while away free time in school.)From the looks of it, it seems invented to use in school buses or other areas where there is less space like school benches or queues. The rules of hand cricket seem complex. But it is simple and quite intuitive. Two boys (and it is usually boys) play something that looks like rapid dumb charades displaying what looks like numbers. The numbers on a closer look mirror the runs in cricket - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Except 6, the rest are quite intuitive. There is a bowler and a batsman - and if their runs match, the batsman gets out - there are but one or two other ways in which a batsman can get out. The boys play this quite rapidly - with the added benefit that their counting ability improves at a rapid rate. The passion of the game i

Last year, a little after Gandhi Jayanti, I was at my sons class attending a routine Parents Teacher meeting. After the usual meeting and greeting, it was time to go back. And as is my wont, my eyes wandered around the class and I noticed that the teacher had pinned up various Mahatma Gandhi's coloured by the children. These were the outline of the face of Mahatma Gandhi that had been distributed to the children and they were presumably instructed to colour it. The faces were all coloured identically - orange and yellow in some combination. I looked around and it did seem like all the childrens drawings were there spread across the many boards in the class. Not able to spot my sons drawing, and knowing that he would usually know where any of his stuff is pinned up, I asked the little one, "Where is your drawing?" "The teacher did not put mine on the board." he said, quite indignantly "Why?" I asked curious to know "Because I coloured Mahatma

Over the course of our life - day in and day out - we gather/learn lot through our 5 senses. Out of that, what sticks in our minds? And why is that? Undoubtedly bad memories last for a long long time - and so do good. And both of these can be triggered by certain "triggers" - in the absence of a better word. But in the context of this post, I dont mean just memories - I mean, things we learn. But as you will see, memory is an important part of the learning process. Click here to see the types of memory . A typical example of how we learn something is best explained using the bicycling paradigm. The four stages of competence . We start from "unconscious incompetence" - I dont know I know. Then we move to "conscious incompetence" - I know I dont know. Then "conscious competence" - where we need to put in effort to learn. And finally, the rewarding stage - "unconscious competence" where the learning is internalized. Each of the memo

Superb video. Dont miss it - if you havent already seen it.

Another great video. Take a look.

A great example of storytelling - using vivid illustrations - and this is only about Bottled water. The whole series can be seen here - lovely stuff. All part of a project called "The story of stuff".

When I was in school - about 10 years old - I used to go to shloka classes to learn the Rudram and the Chamakam among other things. OK. That's a lie. My father used to send me to those classes and I used to go because I had no choice. Here is where I learnt, by experience, that you can take the horse to the water, but cannot make it drink. The prime reason I did not like those classes was because they clashed with those stupid DD soaps of those times. Come of think of it, those miserable soaps. Luckily my father won - and thankfully I realized it about 15 years later. As you might have guessed, I went to those classes, but did not learn. For 5 long years, I went and did not learn. These classes were taught in the traditional gurukul system - with the guru leading and the students repeating it twice. Pure auditory learning. No books given or encouraged - books were allowed at your own risk. Books make you focus more on the text and less on the diction and comprehension the gu

During my random survey with my friends on the teachers they have encountered through school or college, my findings have generally been similar. Over the course of the entire school and college, we would have typically encountered no less than 100 teachers, if not more. The real figure is closer to 200, if you were among those who went to coaching classes and tuitions. And yet if you ask them how many teachers they remember from their school or college days (for what they taught), most of the answers are in single digits. Think about it. Barely 5-10 percent of your teachers are "good" - that you remember them 15-20 years later. It's a travesty is it not? That the nearly 15 to 18 odd years we spend studying, we barely remember a few teachers. So, here is the story of one such teacher who has left an everlasting impression in my mind. Metallurgy, as a subject, to those who do not know about it, can be interesting as watching paint dry. And that in essence is what gre

It is unlikely that you would have spotted this blog. In the unlikely event that you have spotted this blog, I welcome you here. This is a space where I plan to share my rather serendipitous journey into the world of learning. If someone told me ten years ago that I would be planning for a career in learning and training, I would have laughed at them. But thats how it is. If I knew what I would be doing ten years ago whats the fun in it. But then, as life would have it, here I am, heading a Training team. And enjoying it immensely. These are some of my own learnings in this space which I hope to share. Thank you for coming here and I hope you enjoy your time here! After all, life is learning, is it not?