Learn from Everyone, Follow No One, Watch for Patterns, and Work like Hell
I watch TED Talks regularly, but there always seems to be new ones that I have missed. Actually, there are many, many TED videos I haven’t seen so I’m sure there are a lot of ideas just waiting for me to discover them, even after others probably already written about them weeks or months earlier.
A while back I discovered a TED video featuring Scott McCloud, who is a comic strip artist that sometimes takes the medium and the ideas behind it in unexpected directions. In the video, Scott mentions four principles that I thought spoke directly to what I am trying to accomplish in this blog, which is to examine how we can all become independent thinkers that sometimes learn socially, but remain true to ourselves and determine our own learning paths in a complex, rapidly changing world.
Scott’s four basic principles are:
- Learn from Everyone
- Follow No One
- Watch for Patterns
- Work like Hell
These principles are simple, yet extremely powerful as a guiding philosophy for the self-directed learner in the 21st Century. Principle number one, learn from everyone, tells us that in a time when knowledge is becoming highly dynamic, we have to find ways to remain plugged in to streams of thought and we do this best by interacting socially with others and learning from them. For the self-directed learner, principle number two, follow no one is critical. Even though we must form connections to learn socially, we have to safeguard independent thought so that new ideas and perspectives can rise freely, assuring that our networks will continue to thrive with creativity and innovation. Principle number three is watching for patterns. Identifying patterns and being able to act quickly on that information will be one of the highly sought-after skills in the 21st Century. This skill always has been important, but in a rapidly changing world this skill becomes critical. The final principle, “Work like Hell, is obvious and doesn’t need much explanation. Hard, focused, dedicated effort is what always separates the dreamers from the innovators. It is McCloud’s call to action.
Together, these principles say it all. They are simple yet effective guidelines as we go about determining our personal learning paths and deciding how we will direct our own learning in a world of complexity.
