Off Course-On Target

10 Levels of Intimacy in Today's Communication - Ji Lee

I'm a visual person so the great graphic below from Ji Lee really appeals to me, but however you choose to process it I thought this was worthy of some time to reflect upon.  

While there is certainly a difference in the levels of intimacy between many of these forms of communication, in my experience the intimacy can vary greatly within any one of them.  So I'm not sure I see these as levels of intimacy so much as a reasonably comprehensive list of the choices we currently have for communicating with each other, mostly one to one in these examples.  

When you consider how recent many of these ways are you can see why I expect the growth of our communication choices will continue to be exponential.  So one of the critical competencies we need to develop and improve is our ability to match the communication "medium" with the context of any given need and situation.  When is a Tweet the best choice, or an Email or a hand written letter or a phone call or when do you need to go talk to someone in person?

via pleaseenjoy.com

Personal projects are often worth more than professional ones. What's stopping you? - Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

The Snowflake Effect is all about extreme mass personalization for every person every day.  Making things uniquely matched to ourselves and our context so they fit us just right  This often involves the personalization of products and services but what about the personalization of the person?  The Snowflake Effect enables us to be our authentic selves and THAT may well be the most exciting and powerful result of a world full of snowflakes.

Check out the post from Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com and the video of Ji Lee telling the story of how he Snowflaked himself by putting his personal projects in front of his professional ones and ended up having them become one and the same.

Personal projects are often worth more than professional ones. What's stopping you?

It's all too easy to relegate our personal projects to the bottom of the pile until "the day job" is complete. The result? We nearly always end up having to leave creative, fun, new projects behind in the interest of ticking someone else's boxes, when those same personal projects could be the very innovation that make the difference.

Ji Lee was fed up with his life as an ad exec when he decided to engage the public in parodying that very same world, printing out 50,000 speech bubble stickers and placing them over ads around New York City. Over time, the public took the lead in inventing political or comical speech to make the parody. The ultimate parody in this project is, of course, that ad agencies used them to further promote their products. He spins a good yarn in his 99% video.

via edu.blogs.com

Infinitely Scalable Teaching = Limitless Learning

In order for the Snowflake Effect of mass customization and personalization to succeed when applied to learning, teaching and teachers will need need to scale exponentially.  Imagined within our historical and current definitions and assumptions this would be deemed impossible.  However I’ve had some recent experiences that have convinced me that both teaching and teachers can indeed scale exponentially and I am finding more and more examples of this all around.  Here are some examples of both as I continue on my quest of the question of “What if the impossible isn’t?”

Last year while my sailboat was safely moored in El Salvador, I went ashore for a month to increase my Spanish language skills from a level of zero to a larger positive number and to learn more of the cultures and geography of the surrounding countries. I went to three places—Antigua, tiny San Marcos La Laguna on gorgeous Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, and Suchitoto in El Salvador—and in each location, I enrolled in a “language school” where I spent five to six hours a day Monday to Friday for four weeks, engaged in a on-on-one conversation with a Spanish language teacher. I learned A LOT!  Not only a lot of Spanish, but also a lot about each area, country, culture, the people, and especially about learning. 

Language Learning Dating Services?

I’ve often explained that I think it would be better to call these language schools “language dating services” because what they do is find a good match between two people—not for romantic purposes, but for learning as a teacher and a student. It is VERY effective! Similar to dating services, it is up to each pair to decide how they will structure the teaching/learning relationship so that it is just right for both people in terms of pace, level, goals, focus, etc. In my case, I was most interested in being conversant in Spanish so that in everyday situations I could understand others and express myself aurally. I also wanted to have some ability to read and write Spanish. As a result, I did the same thing with each of my three very different teachers, we had an extended conversation for 5-6 hours each day. 

These were true conversations. They were unplanned and spontaneous with all the serendipity of any great conversation where the conversation wonderfully wanders along unexpected paths as you discover different areas of mutual interest. In my case, this included such things as conversations about the mutual interest in music, particularly what makes for “good music”, understanding the roles of technology in the day and life of average citizens in the different cities, and sharing our mutual love for great food and wine.

Note: I’m using the learning of a new language as the subject here but this same approach works well for just about any application I can think of. 

One of the biggest and best things I came away with was a new sense of how personalized learning AND teaching can scale exponentially and  how my notion of a future society of “Tearners” (Teacher + Learner = Tearner)—where each and every one of us are both teachers and learners—is both possible and already happening. If you’d like to read more about my experiences and thoughts on this form of language learning, please read these postings on my Learnativity blog:

• Learning Spanish, culture, geography and SO much more!
• Adios Antigua; Hola San Marcos le Laguna!

Do It Yourself (DIY) Learning via “Tearners”

One of the essential elements for enabling this kind of limitless learning and teaching is to enable and empower an “expert”—anyone who is significantly better than you are in some domain of interest—to be an effective teacher, often without even knowing they are doing so. Rethinking expertise in this way enables us to tap into the skills and knowledge that others have, which in most cases they are not even aware of. 

In the case of language learning for example, anyone who is a native speaker of a language you want to learn, including and perhaps especially children, can teach you what they don’t even know they know. The trick is in finding interesting, fun, and effective ways to do so. And as you’ll see in the following examples, and as was the case with one of my teachers, they don’t even need to know how to speak your language!

In my search for resources to assist with this type of limitless learning, I have found several good ones, including the book “Language Acquisition Made Practical” by Thomas and Elizabeth Brewster. Kevin Kelly featured this book in one of his “Cool Tools”  postings and you can read this concise review for an overview of the book and its methods. I particularly like Kevin’s typically insightful observation:

“Like realizing that you don't need a degree in anything to build your own house, learning that you can become fluent in another language without a course or classroom is deliciously radical.”

The following is an excerpt from this book and it will give you a better idea of how this works in language learning:

Production of Modifiers

Kino says a sentence with modifiers. You repeat the basic sentence without modifiers.

Kino: "The blue jug with the pretty flowers is on the high wooden shelf."
You: "The jug is on the shelf."

Then reverse roles -- he says a simple sentence and you embellish it.

Kino: "This is a book."
You: "This is a good book about the people of this country."
Kino: "This is a candle."
You: "This is a red candle."

Look around you. You can talk about virtually any object, then restate it with modifiers.

Word/Thing Association Game

By using these sentence patterns you can get extra drill on new vocabulary while talking with people. You can touch an object and ask "What is this?" They may answer, "This is Kefala." You can then touch a similar object and ask "Is this Kefala?" and they will answer positively or negatively.
If you are talking with children, this can become quite a game and give you lots of practice with new words. Children will often catch on, and participate with you in the game. First, you can ask the questions while they answer. Then you can trade roles and let them ask the questions while you try to answer. If you enter into the spirit of the game, everybody can have fun while you practice vocabulary.

 

As is often the case, this type of learning is not a new idea or method and as the authors point out this method was used by missionaries trying to learn other languages without the aid of any formal resources, such as books, curricula, classrooms, or teachers. I’m sure you can see how this method enables a form of limitless learning and why I’m so excited about  it. As you try it out and reflect upon it, I think you will also soon be able to apply most of the same techniques to many other subjects. I’ve used it for example to learn how to do wood carving and how to do whitewater kayaking.

Consider learning by doing and try using this both ways—as the learner the next time you need to learn something or as the teacher when you see a teachable moment to help someone benefit from your expertise.

I’d very much appreciate hearing back from you about your experience.

-- Wayne

Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up

Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up | Magazine

• By Jonah Lehrer      December 21, 2009  | 10:00 am  | Wired Jan 2010

Dunbar came away from his in vivo studies with an unsettling insight: Science is a deeply frustrating pursuit. Although the researchers were mostly using established techniques, more than 50 percent of their data was unexpected. (In some labs, the figure exceeded 75 percent.) “The scientists had these elaborate theories about what was supposed to happen,” Dunbar says. “But the results kept contradicting their theories. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to spend a month on a project and then just discard all their data because the data didn’t make sense.” Perhaps they hoped to see a specific protein but it wasn’t there. Or maybe their DNA sample showed the presence of an aberrant gene. The details always changed, but the story remained the same: The scientists were looking for X, but they found Y.  via www.wired.com

Erik Duval and I have long shared a fascination and frustration with the notion of learning from failure and particularly the lack of learning from failure, even outright refusal to do so.  I was therefore delighted to find this story and IMHO the excellent observations made by Jonah Lehrer about the nature of failure in science.  And how can you not love an article and writer who includes a quote from both Richard Feynman and Bob Dylan?!

I think Lehrer's comments and observations apply to most of us and life in general and I've found myself thinking more and more about this since first reading this article last month.  

I need to get better at following through on posting things soooner than later and so this has sat as one of more than hundred (no I'm not kidding) open tabs in my browsers waiting for me to post.  Thankfully Dan Pink provided the kick I needed to get this one posted when he took note of this same article and was apparently similarly struck by it and his noting of this as one of his 3 Articles Worth Reading.  (thanks Dan!)

I strongly encourage you to read Lehrer's article as I think it truly thought and action provoking.  Read for example such notes as:

• Belief, in other words, is a kind of blindness.
• If humans — scientists included — are apt to cling to their beliefs, why is science so successful? How do our theories ever change? How do we learn to reinterpret a failure so we can see the answer?
•  “These weren’t sloppy people,” Dunbar says. “They were working in some of the finest labs in the world. But experiments rarely tell us what we think they’re going to tell us. That’s the dirty secret of science.”
• The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.

And consider closely his suggestions on 

 

How to Learn 
From Failure

Too often, we assume that a failed experiment is a wasted effort. But not all anomalies are useless. Here’s how to make the most of them. —J.L.

1Check Your Assumptions

Ask yourself why this result feels like a failure. What theory does it contradict? Maybe the hypothesis failed, not the experiment.

2Seek Out the Ignorant

Talk to people who are unfamiliar with your experiment. Explaining your work in simple terms may help you see it in a new light.

3Encourage Diversity

If everyone working on a problem speaks the same language, then everyone has the same set of assumptions.

4Beware of Failure-Blindness

It’s normal to filter out information that contradicts our preconceptions. The only way to avoid that bias is to be aware of it.

 

These seem to match extremely well with my experiences and observations and include why the overly hyped attention on so called "social media" has some great promise by adding in this cast to making steps 2 and 3 above very easy and effective.

Hope you enjoy and get as much out of this as I continue to do.

School of What if the Impossible Isn't?

Singularity University

Ted Greenwald is Tweeting from SU (http://twitter.com/tedgreenwald) using the hashtag #singularityu. Photos courtesy of Singularity University.

via www.wired.com

See this article for a great set of things to add to my "What if the Impossible Isn't?" list. You may also enjoy, as I did, reading more about the recently started Singularity University and this blogging account by one recent attendee.

Unlikely Ukulele Uniqueness

You wouldn’t expect anything less than eclectic from me or Off Course – On Target, so here is the latest addition to my “What if the Impossible Isn’t?” list. My mission is to have us all change our baseline assumption to be that almost anything is possible.

The TED videos (and BoingBoing) are great sources of examples showing us how the impossible isn’t.

WARNING:  TED videos have proven to be addictive!

TED has recently released the teaser of who we will be seeing and hearing from in the TED2010 program guide. 

For one example of what you can expect in 2010, check out the music and passion coming from a young ukulele player named Jake Shimabukuro.  Yes, that’s right—a ukulele player!  Think you don’t like the ukulele or know what “that kind of music” sounds like?  Check out some of Jake's YouTube videos such as the one below and see this example of how “the impossible isn’t” as he literally makes those four little strings dance and sing.  Best if you watch a few of these to see the diversity of sounds and songs from Thriller to Over the Rainbow to Let’s Dance.

I picked out the following performance of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” which takes place by a stream in Central Park .

Some of his concert performances are particularly worth watching to get more of a sense of the person behind the music (see below).

Almost more than the music, I love the passion and the commitment to change the way we think of this instrument and perhaps music in general. Well worth a look and listen, though with the usual caveats and warnings that you are likely to spend more time there and learn more than you expect.  And that’s part of the good news and the gift!  Enjoy!

$100,000 to the Naked Chef: Jamie Oliver Named Sole TED Prize Winner

I was equal parts delighted and surprised by this recent announcement on December 21st by Alissa Walker on Fast Company about the sole TED Prize winner for 2010, chef Jamie Oliver. More specifically, I’m delighted about his success, hopefully continued and extended by the attention brought by this TED Prize, on changing the food attitudes and habits of children and families.

“There he is, Mr. TED Prize 2010 (he's the one on the left). Yes, it's British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef, the man who brought his brand of sexy, slightly-messy, all-natural cooking to television--and his own sexy, slightly-messy, all-natural chef-ness for women everywhere to fantasize about greasing up with extra virgin olive oil.

Don't worry, he's not gonna blow the $100k on a 2-ton chunk of pink Himalayan salt. For the last few years, Oliver's been on the front lines of fighting childhood obesity. For the last year he's been battling state school lunches in the U.K., pressuring them to spend $1 billion to overhaul the program, and penned a lovely manifesto for schools. He founded the Fifteen Foundation, a program that trains at-risk 18-to-24 year-olds in the culinary arts, and a new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution USA, where he hopes to bring the same level of reform to U.S. schools, will debut on ABC next year.”

via www.fastcompany.com

For the past 30+ years, I've spent more time outside of North America than in it, and every time I go back, I'm always taken aback by the increase in obesity, and the contributing behaviors I see. In the past 10 years, the most marked and upsetting increase has been the degree to which this is now affecting children, as well as entire families and social groups.

I'm personally convinced the root of the problem is eating habits and poor diets. Solutions are mostly a return to the age-old wisdom of less quantity, more quality, and physical activity. No new fads, diets, or supplements required, thank you.

One of the best things I've read in a long time and one of my most recommended books for the past few years is "French Women Don't Get Fat" by Mireille Guiliano.  Of COURSE it is written by a woman—they are SO much smarter—but I don’t find it to be at all limited or exclusive to my favorite gender.  Here’s an excerpt from the editor’s review:

“The message of this book could be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. There is no hard science, no clearly-defined plan, and no lists of food to have or have not; instead, you'll find simple tricks that boil down to eating carefully prepared seasonal food, exercising more and refusing to think of food as something that inspires guilt. It's both a practical message and far easier said than done in today's "no pain, no gain" culture.”

It is no more about women than it is about the French or diets.  It is ALL about the joy of food and the joy of life and that these are NOT mutually exclusive. I like for example, Mireille’s note  that “as an adult everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium.”

Some things I’ve tried that have increased my already high joie de vivre and joy of eating include:

• Multiply the number of times you chew a given food by 10.
• Eat just one morsel at a time. Try this with popcorn!
• Never drink while you are eating (i.e. wash it down).
• Eat the real thing; never eat substitutes (sugar, milk, butter, chocolate).
• Strike a balance or equilibrium; if you eat more, exercise more.

You get the idea. This book is well worth the read. And congratulations to Jamie and TED!

-- Wayne

List with a Twist: My Best Learning Books in 2009?

I am always looking for the next great book to read and thought I’d tap into the collective intelligence, the annual end-of-the-calendar-year trend for lists, and the power of new tools such as Twitter to find the next great book to read. Below is some of the why, how, and what I have in mind.

Mashup of Old and New

I continue to be intrigued by the power that comes from creating mashups of old and new. In this case, it is about finding the next great book to read (how old can you get?) using a new means such as Twitter, blogs, etc.

In short, what I’m asking you to do is reflect upon books you’ve read this past year, choose one or more that you found to be the best learning book for you, and share this with the rest of us via a tweet.* Ideally you can also articulate with more detail on why you chose this particular book and post this to your blog, Facebook page, or otherwise share your thoughts with the rest of us.

I considered making this more wide open and going for “best learning resource” that could include books, websites, blogs, tweets, slides, presentations, etc., and perhaps we should expand this idea and format to other resources.  But for now, I have purposely limited this to that oh-so-yesterday medium—books—as I’m interested in finding more in-depth and detailed exploration of ideas, concepts, techniques, models, and the like. I not only find myself reading more than ever from a greater diversity of sources, dates of publication, and formats than ever, but as a voracious eBook reader, I find myself reading more books than I ever have (something which I already did a lot) and am finding exponentially more value in doing so. I’d like to continue that trend.

Vaguely Focused

I have also purposely focused on “learning books” and have left the definition and interpretation of what a learning book is in this context to be open-ended and up to you. You can treat learning as a verb or a noun, just make it personal and passionate. For example, you can decide to choose the book which was the best at:

• Stimulating your personal learning, was most provocative, made you think the most, perhaps one you disagreed with the most?
• Causing the most change in your thinking, your perspective, your behavior.
• Stimulating new ideas, new questions, new paths to pursue.
• Being most helpful in your personal learning and/or with learning in your organization—personal or professional.
• Affecting a change in learning as a topic/subject.
• Any other way you want to interpret what “learning book” means to you.

Like to learn by example?  Check out this list of “Books that Changed My Life” (and a very cool library pictured here as well) from Kevin Kelly.

List with a Twist

This is not an attempt to create a new top ten list, and least of all, any kind of most popular or bestseller list! There are lots of these and there are more to come I’m sure. And by all means, mention them here if you find some good lists that helped you find a great book for learning in 2009. 

While I would not want to stifle more input, rather than creating an echo chamber of agreement with someone else’s #myBLB09 tweet, I’m hoping you will either add your own book or tweet about an additional benefit you got from reading a book someone else listed. I will not be compiling a summative list, I won’t be taking votes, or in any other way trying to categorize or rate these books. The #myBLB09 will help enough with that. Rather I’m trying to stimulate more sharing of what you found to be the most valuable for you.  My assumption is that we will all benefit from our individual sharing of personal great reads.

However, I’m actually hoping to see hundreds or thousands of books listed here, which will enable each of us to add a new book to our own personal top ten list for 2009 before it ends all too soon.

Here’s how I’d suggest we can all help make this a productive and valuable resource and use of our time:

• Create a tweet with one of the best books you have read in 2009, which had a profound effect on your learning and perhaps that of others around you. 
• I’ve created a Twitter hashtag #myBLB09 and be sure to add #myBLB09 to your tweet so others can find, follow, and benefit.
• Avoid the temptation to list a book you plan to read, have skimmed, think you should read, or ones you think everyone else is reading!
• Reflect upon books you read in 2009 and do not limit this to books which were published in 2009. In fact, I’m hoping that we’ll see more old, obscure, forgotten books than those on any bestseller lists.
• Write less about why you think others should read this book and more about why it was so beneficial and influential for you. 
• Bonus points for a link in your tweet rather than text regarding the author, book, etc. so you can use more of the 140 characters to state why this is a great book for you! 

  Tip: Use the “custom naming” option in the URL shortener (bit.ly, snurl, tinyurl, etc.) that you use to make the link text more descriptive and part of your tweet text.  Search on “custom naming URL shortening” or the like for help with this such as:

  • http://www.seoconsultants.com/twitter/shorts/
  • http://www.geekpreneur.com/the-top-10-url-shortening-services

• Consider writing a more detailed account of how and why this was such a great learning book for you and posting this on your blog, Facebook page, or other ways you can share these thoughts with the rest of us. Then send a tweet with a link to your notes and include the #myBLB09 hashtag.
• If, as will often be the case, you have more than one great learning book you read in 2009, consider creating and posting your own personal list of “My Best Learning Books in 2009” and tweet a link to your list, adding #myBLB09 as well of course.

Help Me, Help You by Helping Me Help You

In the wonderful ways of the cyclical benefits of gifting, I’m hoping that by asking you to help me find my next great book to read, you will find your next great book to read. And at this time of year, if you are looking for a gift for friends and family, perhaps this will provide you with some gift ideas. However my real hope is that by doing this, I may in some small way be able to give a gift to you by asking you to consider giving yourself a gift—the gift of time for reading, thinking, and reflecting, which I find books to be great catalyst for. How’s that for circular!

While the end of year certainly brings with it lots of demands on your time, it can also provide an opportunity for the luxury of time to read. Consider it an investment in the future and an investment in yourself such that you can in turn be that much more useful and effective in helping others in the upcoming New Year and beyond. For those of you who use calendars and schedulers—electronic or paper—to help organize and manage your time, consider simply scheduling time for you to read something stimulating and provocative and the time to reflect and think about it all. It is no coincidence that in my experience with others who I regard to be extremely successful, I’ve discovered that they specifically carve out time for just this kind of activity at least annually and often more so. Why not you too?

You’ve done your best to be good all year right?  You not only deserve this gift, but in the end it will enable you to better gift the rest of us with an even more powerful and passionate you in 2010.

Looking forward to your help in finding the next great book to read.  Thanks!

Wayne

_____________________

* If Twitter and tweeting is new to you or you have been trying to figure it out, my experience is that this is one of those things that you can only learn experientially. Use it for a month and you’ll know if it is valuable for you. See my previous post “Twitterpated” for more details. Why not use this opportunity to start your experiential learning of Twitter now?

What if the Impossible Isn’t?

As I mentioned in my recent post “Reflective Reduction Sauce”, returning to my work universe after months at sea has led me to reflect upon some themes I encountered as a result of my attending the Learning 2009 conference. One theme I’m delighted to see more attention on is “What if the impossible isn’t?”

This theme is about the need to understand that we are living at a time where almost anything is possible. While I would still wager that the majority of people are not quite believers yet, I continue to have great fun exploring  what is the current “state-of-the-art of the possible” with others in my presentations and conversations.

What makes something possible includes such factors as:

• Does it exist? (invented/discovered yet?)
• Am I aware of it?
• Is it available to me? (out of private beta, out of the research lab, etc.)
• Is it ready for me?  (good enough for my use)
• Can I afford it?

Fundamentally, my sense, my message, and my belief is that the only thing holding us back anymore is our assumptions of what it possible, what we should be demanding and expecting as consumers, and the overall attitude we need to take that if something is not possible today, it will be tomorrow—almost literally. 

Living in the Age of Abundance

But I am not suggesting that just because something is possible or available, you need to use it. Quite the opposite actually. Our choices should be driven by our needs, our passions, and our curiosity. Yet this habit of trying anything new is a holdover from the previous era of scarcity whereby we would often feel a need to use something just because it came to our attention, arrived on the market, or was pushed at us as new and improved. 

As we transition into the age of abundance, I believe we need to assume that everything and anything is available and possible, and work from there. In doing so, I find it necessary to invert these earlier approaches and avoid the tendency of starting with a solution in search of a problem.

As many of us* start living in an era of abundance where anything becomes possible, it puts a wonderful pressure on us to think and focus more on:

• What do we really need?
• What are the essential characteristics we are looking for?
• What are our top priorities?

In grossly oversimplified terms, the way we have historically planned and designed is:

• To start with some ideal end state in mind and then develop back from that based on what is impossible.
• To build a solution based on what we think is possible and accept what is often a very significant degree of compromise in the process. 

In doing so, most of our sense of what is possible is quite dated and is based on unconscious assumptions.   Both of these problems are causing us to squander opportunities to improve and do things we believe are still only dreams, and the way to change this is to go after both of these problems.

Learning to Adjust Our Sense of What is Possible

With the rate of change increasing exponentially, our sense of what is possible and what is impossible requires almost constant real-time updating, and necessitates a new planning and project management model. This new model allows for dynamic updating when something that was impossible when the current plan was developed becomes possible. When this happens, the project should start using it and taking advantage of it.

This kind of updating can largely be addressed through technical means if all such requirements are well-articulated in the initial planning process, such that the needed capabilities and other requirements are quantified and stated and can thus be tracked for relevant changes.

However, our unconscious assumptions are a much more troubling and challenging problem because they lurk below our level of awareness and because they become indelibly ingrained into our habits, behaviors, and thinking. For example, my focus on the Snowflake Effect—the transition from an era of mass production to one of mass personalization—includes many such assumptions. Mass production is not reserved for the domain of manufacturing, but rather has permeated most societies and our overall way of thinking. 

When I talk about this meta theme of the Snowflake Effect, one of the most common and provocative questions that I ask is, “If we all seem to agree that each of us is unique, and furthermore that each moment and situation is unique, then why do we live in a world that is designed for sameness?” 

When we design something, we typically start by identifying the “target audience”, a group of people who are  defined by a set of common characteristics. The larger this audience, the better. Think about this for a minute. Imagine you are designing and developing any new product, such as a lesson for students, a book, a website, a car, or service. Do you find that designing all of these involves the same basic model based on an assumption of sameness?

And I get it. This model used to make complete sense. Mass production was a brilliant model in its time and we largely got to where we are today because of it. However, the great news is that most of the conditions and constraints which made mass production such a successful model have changed or have been eliminated, yet the model persists. Add to this the equally wonderful dynamic that truly amazing new capabilities, products, and services are becoming possible and available every day. We are increasingly moving to the point where the impossible isn’t.

It’s Time to Get Good at Believing in the Impossible

What to do?  What needs to change? First and foremost I think it is we who need to change—our thinking and our assumptions. We need to get good at believing in the impossible. In true synchronistic fashion, I recently received this quote from my good friend Murry Christensen which resonated strongly and added to my sense that this meta theme I’m discussing here is growing:

"We must learn to deal with possibilities instead of probabilities."

-- Verna Allee

And one of my favorite thinkers and writers is Kevin Kelly and he has been making these same kinds of observations for many years now. One of my favorite Kevin phrases is:

“Impossible in theory, possible in practice”

Kevin makes this observation in light of the many capabilities we are now immersed in  yet which only a few years or months previously we would have regarded as impossible. You can read Kevin’s piece on “Believing the Impossible” or watch his TED talks such as “The next 5000 days of the web” (included here), and “How Technology Evolves”.

Still not convinced?  Watch these other TED talks and see if you change your mind a little or a lot:

• Pranav Mistry demonstrating his “Sixth Sense” device

• Juan Enriquez’s tour of some views of “mindboggling science”

• David Hanson showing his robots that “show emotion”

Believing that “the impossible isn’t” is what has led me to conclude that the dream of being able to seize every “teachable moment”, to have personalized learning experiences available for every person on the planet multiple times every day, and get to a “just the right” end state where we can get just the right stuff to just the right person at just the right time in just he right context, has become an achievable goal.

What about you?  When it comes to capabilities, products, services, etc., what is on your “wish it were possible” list? What, were it to be possible, would make the most significant difference in your professional or personal life?  My experience in pursuing these questions is that by articulating and sharing them, we will discover that many are already possible and those that aren’t can be put on our watch list, so that we will be notified in days, weeks, or months that it has just become possible. 

Sound impossible?  Just watch, it isn’t!

Wayne

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* Let’s keep in mind that in terms of world population (almost 7 billion), we are still the privileged few who live in in this era of abundance, and although this group is also growing exponentially, we all need to continue to work to distribute abundance.

What It’s All About

Want to see what it is all about? Want to see a real live humanitarian and all around great person?

Check out this video of my dear friend Linda English, a founder and Director of Membership Development, Learning for International NGOs LINGOs, www.lingos.org

This is from the Microsoft Alumni Foundation, Honors 2009 Integral Fellows ceremony on Wednesday (Nov.18, 2009).

You GO girl!