Always be learning — How to turn ‘dead time’ into learning time
In an age of stories of ‘digital disruption’ we are increasingly seeing and hearing stories of the need to up skill or risk seeing our jobs or even entire professions get automated.
The only key that any of us have to succeeding must the relentless pursuit of improvement. This sounds exhausting but it is accurate. Here’s why.
Technology is changing exponentially
It’s not difficult to see how any kind of logical, analytical or routine based work can either be outsourced or at worst, automated. I remember one of my first jobs out of university was in funds management.
In my first two years in the position, an entirely new management information system was introduced which made my job a lot easier. Sounds great? I certainly thought it was, at first. But it also removed some of the human value that I could bring to the table in terms of the client specific routines and procedures that I was able to create. These are things that I had codified in my brain and enabled me to add value to my client’s interactions with the company. This also meant that there was always a risk that when a fund administrator left the organisation, clients could be upset as the specific routines and procedures that had been developed for them could be forgotten or at the very least, there was potential for friction between the administrator and the fund manager as the administrator climbed the learning curve.
From a business point of view, it made sense to codify procedures. For one thing, it made it standardised procedures from fund to fund. It also made it easier for staff to take over responsibility for new funds. If you think about the bottom line, it meant that the work people did was less valuable and so it also made it more difficult to demonstrate human value and thus, push for promotion or a pay rise etc.
I remember discussing this with a friend who asked me if I was in the ‘management stream’. As I examined the work that I was doing, I had to admit that I needed to be involved in more value adding activities to make progress in my career. I wasn’t in the stream and found it difficult to envision a pathway to get into that stream. And so I moved on.
Side note: It was my first full time professional position. Was I also a bit immature and self entitled to want to progress quickly? Admittedly, yes! But in terms of my intuition about technology taking away the value I could add to the job, and the satisfaction that I could get out of it, I continue to think that my logic was sound.
Fast forward to 10 years later. I work in marketing. The impact of digital has meant that marketing is a discipline that is in constant flux. Depending on your point of view it’s either a very exciting time to be a marketer, or it’s a very stressful time! Why? Because things are changing so quickly.
Marketers are either excited about topics like marketing automation, AI and machine learning and what industry will be next to get ‘disrupted’ — (ahem, banking), or they are terrified. One thing that marketers can certainly agree on is that anything that can be digitised or automated will be.
In the words of one of my idol’s David Bowie, “Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming”. And so we need to identify those things that can’t be automated or digitised, and learn everything we can about them. The best way to equip ourselves to do this, is to always be learning.
Three reasons to always be learning
- Getting better at something provides a great source of energy. It’s true. Our brains release dopamine when we learn new and interesting things.What’s not to like about that?
- Everybody wants to achieve their potential. Don’t sabotage your potential by not learning new things and exposing yourself to new ideas. Learning is at the heart achieving one’s potential. To learn is to live.
- Change is inevitable. Here is something to ponder over — the pace of change today is the slowest it will ever be. Our best response is to suck it up and deal with it.
Turning dead time into learning time
So hopefully you’ve been convinced about the value of learning. That’s great but there’s a villain in this story. You’re busy. You don’t have time to do a course. You have chores to do. You have children to wash. You can’t keep your eyes open for longer than 5 minutes when you try to read in bed. Where can you get the time?
I take the London tube to work. It’s possibly one of the most antisocial places known to humanity. Everyone is wearing earphones. Everyone is wearing earphones….And for me this is the key.
Sources of learning are everywhere and accessible through multiple digital channels and devices. Great audio content includes:
— Podcasts
— Audiobooks
— Blinkist
— MOOCs
— Expert media publications and blogs
With regard to educational content: there was a time when this was only typically accessible via fixed authoritative sources as part of fixed bodies of knowledge and available from libraries, schools or encyclopedias. These media were limited in terms of their physical scale.
The amount of amazingly researched, produced and downloadable audio and video learning content available is quite phenomenal. And it can be consumed in bite sized chunks while commuting, walking, jogging or during short breaks.
Podcasts
Podcasts are basically just on demand radio that comes in the form of episodic content that you can subscribe to and download. They are mostly in audio form but some can also come in video format.
The amount of excellently researched and produced podcasts these days is quite phenomenal. If you’re not sure how to listen to podcasts or don’t know where to start, I’ve written this post to help you get set up.
The following list of podcasts are ones that I like to support me in my learning. They are also highly entertaining. In truth there are loads more that I could recommend but part of the fun is discovering for yourself!
The Marketing Book Podcast
I work in marketing so this is a useful resource for me. The Marketing Book Podcast consists of weekly interviews with best-selling authors to help marketers keep up with what’s working in the quickly changing field of modern marketing (and sales).
The interviewer has a great way of pulling out the key learning points from each book. I find this useful to stay up to date on new approaches in marketing as well as to filter which books I need to investigate further, and which ones I don’t!
StarTalk Radio
I first heard Neil deGrasse Tyson as a guest on a number of other interview based podcasts. He is an incredibly engaging personality that has a great way of inspiring listeners to be interested in science.
I started listening to StarTalk Radio where deGrasse Tyson educates listeners on all things space — stars, planets, humans in space, etc. He’s also interviewed lots of amazing people including Buzz Aldrin.
The Daily
The Daily is a daily news podcast by the American newspaper The New York Times. Hosted by Times political journalist Michael Barbaro, its 20-minute episodes are based on the Times’ reporting of the day.
Harvard Business Review IdeaCast
This is a weekly podcast featuring the leading thinkers in business and management from Harvard Business Review.
Freakonomics Radio
Freakonomics Radio is a highly produced podcast that explores socioeconomic issues and riddles of every day life. Host Stephen J. Dubner talks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, social scientists and entrepreneurs. The show is a spin-off of the 2005 book Freakonomics.
TED Radio Hour
The TED Radio Hour is a journey through fascinating ideas, inventions, fresh approaches to old problems and new ways to think and create. I love listening to TED Radio Hour to learn about abstract topics and to challenge me to think in new ways.
Revisionist History
Revisionist History is a podcast by journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell. It has so far had two seasons. Gladwell, applies his questioning mind to various moments moments in history and questions whether those moments played out the way they are commonly perceived to have played out. I particularly liked a series of 3 episodes about access to education in the USA:
— Season 1, Episode 4: Carlos doesn’t remember
— Season 1, Episode 5: Food Fight
— Season 1, Episode 6: My little hundred million
Audiobooks
Books provide intellectual stimulation and emotional fulfillment. We’d all like to read more books but unless you are a skilled speed reader or have lots of spare time it can be difficult to consume enough high value content to thoroughly understand a topic. I find audiobooks really useful for reading / listening as I commute.
Audiobooks have traditionally been used by learners with poor reading skills either due to dislexia or poor eye sight. Many people turn their noses up at the idea of listening to a book rather than reading. I think that’s a shame.
The ubiquity of smartphones and access to subscription services like Audible has enabled the use of audiobooks as credible substitutes or indeed additions to traditional reading.
There isn’t much research to indicate the differences between reading and listening on the effect of learning. There is however research that suggests that reading and listening are similar cognitive processes. For example, a 1985 study found listening comprehension correlated strongly with reading comprehension.
I find listening to most audiobooks just as intellectually stimulating as reading a book. Admittedly, there are some types of books that are difficult listens. These tend to be quite dense, descriptive / textbook kinds of books. When the material is difficult or abstract for example, physical reading provides an advantage because you can re-read difficult passages. Equally the narrator has a role to play too.
MOOCs
A MOOC is a massive online open course. These are available via online platforms where educational institutions can make some of their courses available to students around the world.
For example, I recently completed a course on Understanding Research Methods with University of London via the MOOC platform, Coursera.
Coursera is a platform where learning institutions can make their courses available.
Generally, courses are free but sometimes you can pay a nominal fee and get a certificate of completion. In most cases, the certificate isn’t really valuable from an academic point of view, as in, it can’t be exchanged for credits at any institutions in the UK to demonstrate prior learning etc. They are useful though for upskilling, expanding your knowledge and you can display your certificate of completion on your CV and on LinkedIn.
MOOC are different to other online learning tools like Khan Academy. MOOC courses generally have a start, middle and end whereas Khan academy can be useful for bite sized chunks, generally in math or science. Students find Khan useful for helping them with topics that they are finding challenging as opposed to learning an entire curriculum.
The main MOOC platforms that I have used:
— Futurelearn: Futurelearn is the only UK based MOOC provider. It was set up by Open University.
This is a list of MOOC providers with a brief background of their background: https://www.quora.com/NovoEd/NovoEd-Can-you-please-list-all-MOOC-providers-like-Udacity-edX-Coursera-etc
Then there are also other sites for learning such as UIdacity, Udemy and LinkedIn learning:
· Udemy is a platform not completely dissimilar to a MOOC platform. The difference is that anyone can create a course and sell it on Udemy. In effect it acts like a marketplace and a learning management system. You can’t get any recognition for Udemy courses. They are useful though for covering more niche, less academic topics. So for example there are lots of courses on Udemy covering skills based topics such as AdWords, Programming, Data Analysis etc.
· LinkedIn learning provides video based courses on semi technical subjects to do with business, media and publishing. It have courses on things like AdWords, different programming languages, Excel, Adobe tools etc. Unlike Udemy where you can buy each course separately, with LinkedIn Learning, the courses are included with a premium LinkedIn account. When you complete a course, you can display a badge of completion on your LinkedIn profile.
I’d suggest thinking about the topic you want to learn and then examining the different platforms to see which one suits you. The good thing about most of them is that they have quite good mobile apps where you can download course material for consuming on the go.
Also, as the MOOC platforms have been set up by educators from or with the support of quite well known academic institutions, there is quite a bit of effort put into the pedagogical approach. This means that units are generally bite sized and accompanied by activities such as MCQs to support and assure learning. This also makes it great for bite sized study — lunch time and the tube etc.
Side note, if you are interested in learning science, University of San Diego has a lovely little course called Learning How to Learn. If you haven’t been in education for a while, this is a nice and interesting course to ease you back into things.
Expert media publications and blogs
Despite the fact that much of the ‘knowledge content’ we need to learn about a plethora of subjects is available for free online, it can be a bit like a Tower of Babel. We know it’s all there, but that doesn’t meant that we know what to consume, how to find it or even have the time and space to consume it.
With regard to educational content, there was a time when this was only typically accessible via fixed authoritative sources as part of fixed bodies of knowledge and available from libraries, schools or encyclopedias. These media were limited in terms of their physical scale.
But, while our sources are no longer limited to libraries and teachers, it doesn’t mean that learners can take a laissez-faire approach. We can’t waste time by consuming content and then evaluating its validity after the fact.
I think that’s why in recent years I’ve observed that friends and colleagues are willing to pay a premium to access trustworthy material including news, research and reports. LXA where I work for example, is a premium publisher that requires a subscription to access premium materials.
I’ve also subscribed to news sites like The Information, a site that deliveres well reported stories about the technology business. It offers me fresh information and good insight into technology news and strategy which I find useful for my own role as an analyst. On that point, I must say that I’m happy to pay a premium for good journalism. I know that there are free news sites but sometimes the journalism can be sloppy or the user experience on those sites can be incredibly poor because of the amount of advertising.
A quick note on modes of learning
VARK
Many people are familiar with the acronym VARK which stands for Visual, Aural, Read and Kinesthetic sensory modalities for how people prefer to take in information. Although educators have intuitively known about these sensory modalities for a long time, they have become popular in recent years as a way to help people identify their preferred way of learning.
Enlightened educators and learners recognise that a preferred way of learning shouldn’t be confused with the most effective way of learning. This is worth bearing in mind for my learning recommendations which follow.
The following points summarise the VARK model:
Visual learners prefer to take in information by seeing and often process it in pictorial form. Visual learners may think or remember things in pictures.
Auditory learners prefer to listen and take information in by what they hear. They might prefer lectures, discussions, podcasts and audiobooks over reading.
Reading/writing learners are at home with written material. They comprehend and remember what they read, and may enjoy writing.
Kinesthetic learners learn by experience and particularly by tactile exploration of the world. They prefer to learn by doing — touching, doing, testing — think digital marketing testing.
Final note
There is great flexibility in terms of how and when learning content can be accessed. The sources of learning are everywhere and accessible through multiple digital channels and devices. Plus individuals can engage more easily in learning for pleasure and are not simply prescribed professional outcomes.
I really admire people that are committed to manage their own independent learning. One of my rules of life is Always Be Learning. I think I’d like to update that to ABC — Always Be Curious.
