Serendipity and Learning

Chandrayaan 3 has caught the imagination of Indian people. The power of the big idea. And not just that, even the Vande Bharat - has caught the imagination of the people. I can only imagine when the first RRTS and HSR are launched.  It is said that in 1962, when JFK made his speech about going to the moon , it fired the imagination of the country.  In India Chandrayaan 3 has caught the imagination of children - I remember how I used to be fascinated by NASA during the 80s. Imagine a whole generation of children growing up fascinated by space and dreaming great dreams. And this in our own country.  We have atleast 15 start ups working on space - this was unthinkable. I SRO is licensing its small satellite technology to the private sector.  I hope that the big idea inspires more people to take up STEM courses and advance the frontiers of science.  The last gap that needs to be filled is for the academic sector in India to get into research. We have done that i...

The number of people giving in gyan on ISRO on a particular social media platform is more than the number of employees at ISRO itself.  Some of these worthies have the distinction of passing by ISRO (I also do), of giving a speech at ISRO, spotting a satellite in the sky or just the liberty of a platform to post whatever they feel like. So there are now leadershp principles of ISRO (not documented by ISRO) or how it is the second string of colleges that send people to ISRO (they have their own exam to enter - it is not random - it is that tier 1 students choose other opportunities). Many of these are surmises and guesswork and have much more to it than meets the eye.  One of my problems with sharing examples like this during training is that this is not a first hand experience. It is a view post event with the clarity of being disconnected. And this is true for both successes and failures. Hindsight is 20-20. And sitting outside it is easy to comment - they should have tried ...

 The larger question is about gamifying learning. And at one point, everyone was gamifying everything . That was a prescient 9 years ago, but even today that ideas lives on.  Gamifying as a decorative piece is passe. Please do not do it. It demeans both your audience and your learning intent (and content). Do not strap on gamification to your learning just for the sake of it.  If your learning intent - the reason you want people to get into the learning - is strong - there is no need to gamify it.  If your leadership believes it and supports it - there is no need to gamify it.  If you want to gamify to complete some artificial target set by your boss and your think your audience is not gullible enough to see through it - still do not do it.  So when should you gamify?  When you have a multi-dimensional score. When the badges have application in real life (like stackoverflow) or salesforce trailhead.  Or the badges have benefit in real life (no, no...