Serendipity and Learning

Some days ago I attended a technology presentation. On Learning and Development. The vendors (like many others) have a grand (working) platform of technology enabled learning. And with the season being one of analytics and data – they offer a bouquet of data and analytics as well – more than what you know you can do with it. As technology becomes more and more prevalent, traditional trainings are taking a back seat. There are e-learnings, e-assessments, MOOCs and e-everything. Traditional trainers have a reason to run scared. And this is true across the spectrum – any type of training. But very often, the first state is one of denial. "This wont affect us". But the fact is that it will. Whenever a technology reduces cost, improves scalability and provides consistency to anything – any industry – the industry will face a shake up. When mass manufacturing came by, this happened and the hand crafted industry went through a dip. Automatic watches wi...

Why is only a water melon a water melon? What is an orange not a water orange? It also has the same amount of juice. Or sweet lime. Or Lemon. Or passion fruit. Or pineapple. Why is a coconut not a water coconut - it has real water inside. I don't know. I give up.

Yesterday, a historic election result happened in India. For the first time, a non-Congress party, the BJP got a majority by itself. This is unprecedented, even unexpected. But the last 10 years Congress has provided insipid, corruption ridden, uninspiring leadership that has led India slip in all possible indices. On the contrary, the incumbent, Narendra Modi has turned his state over his 14 year rule into a powerhouse. The leadership styles could not be contrary. I will not delve into the political nuances of it - since this is a blog on learning. What is leadership? Some lessons for people in the corporate ladder and worklife and perhaps in life as well - since leadership lessons largely tend to be the same everywhere. Leadership is being visible, being active, right at the front. Back seat drivers exist only in cars, not in leadership. It means, facing questions, talking, communicating.The Prime Ministers victory speeches exemplify this and his style of functioning so far - ...

As summarised by the ten year old while trawling through youtube lego and carnatic music videos. First there were no ads, Then there were ads on some videos, but you could skip them, Now there are ads which you cannot even skip  Google, please do not be evil - even the ten year old can see it.  

Creativity, Breakthrough ideas, are often found at the intersection of disciplines it is said. A recent book, The Medici effect looks at exactly this. This great example which I found on twitter yesterday (via @KS1729) blew my mind away. It is simple - Carnatic music notes set to 19th century British violin (the kind, which my non musical mind thinks was heard in Disney fairy tales like Snow White). The effect of it is tremendous and so creative. So, a multi disciplinary approach could result in a higher degree of creativity. Update: Turns out that the story is much more interesting. This was composed in the late 1700s when Muthuswami Dikshitar , one of the Carnatic composer greats was exposed to English music - and composed a set of forty odd songs based on various European/English notes (hence called nottuswara). The effect is mindblowing to say the least. That a great carnatic composer was able to stretch his mind, appreciate another type of music and come up with something...

The story of Ekalavya in Mahabharata is soul stirring tale and has quite a sad and gory end. Ekalavya is an epithet that is best used to describe someone who learns on ones own - in this case, Ekalavya uses the statue of Dronacharya to learn - all the while learning by himself with the guru as inspiration. Dronacharya himself, had no idea of this, until he meets his pupil in person at a later point. The internet is giving rise to several Ekalavyas. There is a generation of adults and children who are making immense use of the internet to learn. If there were an age of the autodidact , this would be it. Yes, there are courses, MOOCs, spanking websites with videos, but there are many others who with the power of the long tail - are reaching audiences they would otherwise never dream of reaching. Case in point - the little one, who alernatively is a fan of Jay Stepher , JangBricks and Zazinombies . Yes, I am very sure you would have never heard of these names - he found them some...

What is creativity? There are a zillion answers out there and I have explored some of them here itself. While I am no authority on creativity and while I am no famous creative 'type' there are occasions in my life when I have been blessed with creative output. During one such discussion where we were playing around with a new concept, one person said, "Look it has already been done before. So our idea has lost the game before it was in the reckoning" But that was the beauty of creativity. The idea may be out there - but to do it differently is creativity. For example, public transport exists - in whatever form in the country. But to do it differently - better comfort, higher speed, greater safety, greater reliability - is creativity. We have been learning for ages - but an ipad app that lets you learn through play is creativity. We have been working out for ages - but a wearable is creativity. We have been cooking for ages - but a new recipe is creativity. The ...