Serendipity and Learning

We sent the young one out to a summer camp. A six day wilderness camp. It was his first away from home experience. The camp seemed to be well organized. With activities, work, time for reflection and so on. He was also alone - had no friends - so he had to make new friends. After those six days, he said, home is so easy after the camp. Asked him what that means. He said, there things will difficult - but here at home, everything is there. Comfort. The parental brain thought - wow, that is some learning. Then he spoke about doing things on his own - which as any child would, he is not won't to do at home. About making friends - what makes the human connect. About caring for others. I was amazed at the learning, the humility, the steps he had grown in those few days. This will be one of his stand out learning experiences for some time I suppose! Some processes like these do accelerate learning. There are situations also which do that. At times this happens in organized...

I read this with a lot of interest. It picks on the buzzword that has been floating for some time - around what is known as the 'Uberization of work'. Here it says , The future certainly looks bright in our eyes. In coming decades, vertical labor marketplaces will open up important resources for consumers, and hundreds of thousands of employment opportunities for the growing freelance community. It’s the global flywheel at the heart of our new labor economy. I am not entirely sure of the implications of this, but for sure, this is an increasing trend. If you really want to do something you are passionate about, it is a great idea to go out and do it. And it already exists in many skillsets.  Now the interesting part is that within a company - rather most companies this trend is hugely opposed. There are silos of roles, rules, departments, kingdoms, geographies and egos among other things that prevent this from happening.  Developing thought as I wrap my head a...

Meanwhile we are getting bigger and smaller on Clash Royale. There are good days when we win a ton of trophies. There are bad days when we get thrashed. We spend time discussing various battle strategies (and this is where I love how games make children think). There is a cheapo strategy - that seemed to work well, until we lost a few times. And then tweaked it. Then there is a attack from both sides strategy. Then there is a 'Prince' strategy. Then there is a 'Defense' strategy - worked beautifully once and then never thereafter. Then there is an 'All out offense' strategy - ditto. Then just for kicks, we tried out an aerial route only strategy - this one was an out and out disaster. Now the best part of it is that - there is very little that is useless in the battle deck. And that makes us all think (adult brain, child brain alike) about how we are going to do it. There is discussions on options, choices, priorities, limited gold or gems (both alw...

A few years ago, I was at a panel discussion. And I realized that I was able to articulate my points way better than I perhaps did a few years ago. The difference? At first, I patted myself on the back and gave myself extra brownie points for the growth of my intelligence, articulation and felt smug about it. But when I analyzed it further, I realized that the process of writing it out had made the process easier. And the cause for it was my blog. This blog. I realized this unconsciously, but it just struck me how writing enables the speaking process. The fact that I had written about various kinds of learning experiences over the few years made a difference. When we write, we are channelizing our thoughts (which are unorganized, in a cloud) into a more tangible means. This is a far more stickier process than thinking about it or reading about it (atleast for me). And as you write more, more of thoughts are taken out of the waiting queue and newer thoughts (hopefully better e...

If I were not a trainer, I would have been a designer. Hey, but I am also a training designer. So, when the countries premier design institute announced a Design Thinking workshop, I decided to give it a go. Also, having done a little bit of work on 'Design Thinking' approaches in my work, I thought it was worth exploring further... Design Thinking, Creativity, Insights... And it was an interesting session. With immersive experiences on gathering user insights and so on... Hope to do a longer post on it someday!

We have been fans for Clash for Clans for a while now. Clash of clans was and continues to remain an interesting game. But the truth was that many found it quite complex and too involved. And perhaps Supercell recognized that. And came up with Clash Royale. Having played both CoC and CR, I can say that the thought of Clash Royale has been incredible. This is not an easy path. There are quite a few who have tried. But following up on one success, retaining some elements of it and still making a playable game that is as engaging and does not cannibalize the earlier version (among other things) is not easy. But they have done it. From the earlier format of CoC, they have come up with a simpler format. This is easier to play. No elaborate building. No waiting for troops to get experience, but it is not instant. And with all this there is still an interesting element of gameplay strategy. Indeed, the gameplay strategy is so unique that I don't think I have seen anything like th...

As I thought about my previous post, it set me thinking. On the one hand, there are a lot of regulations on who can open a school, who can run it - what you need and so on and so forth. And on the other hand, there is technology and there are people. Why does one need to transport children in uniform across thousands of (cumulative) kilometres, when they can learn very well where they are? Yes, maybe in the industrial age, it had to be done, but why now? India already has a National Institute of Open Schooling. And a Virtual Open School. Why aren't enough parents taking more advantage of it? Why are we still sending children to school (I still am, even as I write this)? Is it because that schools are also a place where children go daily - thus allowing parents to work? Why cant this be extended to simplify the process of licensing schools? (I think some part of licensing is free atleast in Karnataka - for some types of schools). So why cant it be simplified further? To make ...