Unlearning 101

Can the Internet Help Us Unlearn?

 "If this is the information age, what are we so well-informed about?" So asks David Gelernter is this excellent essay in Edge entitled, Time to Start Taking the Internet Seriously. 

Rather than rehash Gelernter's entire article, I just want to highlight a few key concepts:

1. To date, the Internet has been about increasing the quantity of information. To get to the next level, it must concern itself with the quality of information.

2. To do this, Gelernter suggests "turning Cyberspace on its side, so that time instead of space is the main axis." As a metaphor, he likens today's websites to a stained-glass window which has many panels leaded together. What the Internet must become is a rushing flow of fresh information that can nurture new ways of thinking.

3. To this end, Gelertner argues the Internet of the future "can help us change our ways of thinking."

4. In order to do this, however, the Internet move from away from it's "culture of nowness." As Gelertner suggests the Internet's ability to focus like a laser on the "now" has a couple of unhealthy implications. First, a focus on "now" prevents many people from learning more about "then." The current Internet is also "a machine for reinforcing our prejudices." Sure, people can use it to find ten different perspectives on a story but, instead, many of us use it to review the same story from ten like-minded people. 

Before Gelernter concludes with an optimistic vision of the Internet (which he says is "The best is yet to be"), he reminds his audience that "We would be fools to doubt our ignorance."

As someone who is focused on unlearning, I think it is wonderful reminder that we must all have some intellectual humility. Or, as John Brockman writes in the introduction to the article, "Many of the people that desperately need to know, don't even know that they don't know."

What don't you know about the Internet of the future and what might you have to unlearn in order to embrace the fullness of its future potential?

Erasing into the Future

 “Only the hand that erases can write the truth”. So wrote German theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckardt more than 800 years ago.

They are still good words to live by.

In the middle of the 19th century, blackboards were all the rage. In fact, some universities, seeking to gain a competitive advantage, even advertised that they were the only college within “a 100 miles” to sport the new technology.

This historical analogy is worth keeping in mind as university’s today tout that they offer every student a laptop or, perhaps, house the only high-tech lab “within a 100 miles.” The technology is no doubt sophisticated and it does offer a real advantage but it is important to remember that it will eventually be replaced by something else.

The real question, of course, is how soon. Far too many teachers, professors and schools continue to rely on blackboards not because they are the best tool (although they still do have a role to play) but because their hands (and minds) can’t erase their old habits and behaviors.

We are racing into the future but for those organizations unwilling to unlearn and change all they are really doing is erasing their students future.

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Is the Future of College $99 a Month?

A Woman Without Her Man is Nothing

Read the following sentence: A woman without her man is nothing.   

My guess is that if you're a woman it may have pissed you off because you read it in the following way: "A woman, without her man, is nothing". If, however, you made just a small change in punctuation it could be read this way: "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

My point is this: Sometimes a small change can make a huge difference. In the above case, the meaning was fundamentally altered. 

This little exercise is a metaphor for the idea that big problems don't always require big fixes.

Consider the issue of organ donations. It is estimated that in America over 90,000 people are currently on waiting lists. Many of those individuals will, unfortunately, die on the waiting list due to a shortage of available organ donors.

It need not be this way. In Germany, only 12% of the population has agreed to donate an organ (in the event they die unexpectedly). In Austria, the percentage is a staggering 99%. The difference? In Germany, people must explicitly give their consent to donate an organ by opting in on a state-provided form. In Austria, people must explicitly opt out. In other words, in Austria, people are assumed to consent to organ donation but are free to opt out if they are uncomfortable with the idea.

In a perfect world, it shouldn't matter what wording the state puts on a form. If people want to donate an organ they are free to do so under either policy. Austria, though, has learned that a small change in language can lead to a huge change -- one which saves many lives.

If other states and countries want to do the same maybe they should start by unlearning their "opt in" clauses.

The Art of the Lasting Impression

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to give a presentation on "Unlearning 101" to 100 or so professionals in the Minneapolis area. Afterwards, as commonly happens, I received a thank you gift from the event's sponsors. Unlike every other such gift I have ever received (and I've received plenty), I will not only proudly display this gift on my desk, I actually want to show it off to people.

Why? Because it is incredibly personalized and the team which put it together -- from a company called Hillarys -- took the time to really get to know me as a person. The result is a gift that reflects my interests as a futurist, author, speaker and, most importantly to me, a father. (I have posted a picture of the gift above).

While the details of the art work may be hard to discern from the photo, the piece (which is no more than 6 inches wide and 6 inches high) contains my favorite quote; a photo of my family; the covers of a few of my books; and even the name of my son's basketball team -- which I coach. 

Moreover, the gift also subtly reflects my passion for the future; unlearning; as well as my family.  In short, the gift truly achieves the company's tagline: "The art of a lasting impression."

I am currently in the process of reading Seth Godin's excellent new book, Linchpin, and from my perspective Hillary Feder and her company embody and exemplify both the spirit and the message of the book to a "T." They infuse their work with passion, creativity, art and, dare I say, even love.

The result is that Hillarys has taken a standard, throw-a-way event for most speakers -- the presentation of a token gift -- and created a meaningful piece of art which will stay with me (and, hopefully, my children) for a long, long time. 

The Opposite May Also Be True

As long time readers of this blog know, I am fond of the map to the right and have used it on previous occasions to emphasize the idea that in order to unlearn we must often view the world from a different perspective.

I was pleased to see that Derek Sivers incorporated it into the end of his two-minute TED talk entitled "There's a Flip-side to Everything." (The entire video is posted below).

I especially liked Siver's example of how in certain Chinese communities citizens pay doctors for each month they stay healthy!

And, although Sivers didn't this example, as a professional futurist who frequently uses history to illuminate the future, I have always liked the story of the Peruvian Indian tribe whose members gesture with their hands in a forward motion when describing the past. (From their perspective, because you can "see" the past, the past is in front of them. The future, on the other hand, can't be seen so it is behind them.

It may sound weird but, as Sivers say in his talk, "The opposite may also be true."

Everything That's Wrong with Education

This weekend my 8 year-old son completed a report on "the invention of the light bulb." The purpose of the report was to trace the history of an invention. With some much needed assistance from my wife, he completed the project but I can't help but ask myself, "What did he really learn?"  

To better frame the problem, I'd like to highlight just one finding of his report which, pardon the pun, I personally found illuminating: Thomas Edison -- a man, ironically, of little formal education himself -- filled 3,500 notebooks with ideas over the course of his lifetime. Three thousands five hundred!

And there, in a nugget, lies everything that is wrong with our educational system. Rather than having students fill their notebooks with "facts" about the light bulb and Thomas Edison, we should be providing them with the tools to fill up notebooks with their own ideas!

I fully realize that this is also my responsibility as a parent but it would be nice if our schools were working in cooperation with us in this vitally important endeavor. Instead, I fear our schools are beating the creativity out of our kids.

It is yet another reason why I believe we need to begin teaching the subject of "Unlearning" as early as kindergarten.

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I've Got a Secret and I'll Kiss & Tell

J.D. Salinger on Unlearning

Yesterday, at the ripe old age of 91, J.D. Salinger the famed and reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye passed away. In his honor, I'd like to share a wonderful quote from one of his lesser known works, Franny and Zoe:  

"Seymour once said to me - in a crosstown bus, of all places - that all legitimate religious study must lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory differences, between boys and girls, animals and stones, day and night, heat and cold."

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10 Questions to Help You Unlearn

Asking a new question has always been one of my favorite methods of unlearning. I would therefore like to share with you ten questions from Seth Godin's new video (the full video is posted below for your viewing enjoyment) on this most recent book, Linchpin.  

1. Can asking questions help you conquer resistance? (And, I would add, should we begin teaching this skill in kindergarten?)

2. Does everyone agree that there is a problem? (Is, perhaps, your ego part of the problem?)

3. What if you solved the problem in a way that makes a tiny minority extremely happy?

4. Could you build a brand people would hate even more? (Is Starbucks is on to something.)

5. If we got rid of textbooks, what would be the best way to replace them? (Here's one idea.)

6. If you discovered your biggest competitor was successfully developing a product that reinvents the rules of your industry, what would you do?

7. Could you do the same thing if the competitor wasn't about to do this?

8. If you could uninvite one person to the product development meeting, who would it be? (Could you have avoided this problem by conducting an "unterview?")

9. Which customer would you fire if you could? (Do you first need to unlearn the rules?)

10. Are there other questions that make you uncomfortable? (If you can't think of any ideas I suggest you begin by becoming uncomfortable in your own skin or starting an anti-library.)

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Public Libraries as Centers of Unlearning

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Riddles for linchpins from Seth Godin on Vimeo.

Evolutionary Unlearning

I am not an evolutionary biologist. I do not play one on television and, even though this is the Internet, I won't try to pretend I am one. Nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that unlearning will be an essential skill in the future because I am of the opinion that human evolution is an exponential trend. 

Let me put it another way. Until about 200 years ago the average person could expect two constants in his or her life. First, life didn't change much. If your grandfather was a farmer (or peasant) it was likely that your father was also a farmer or peasant and so were you. Moreover, you all lived life in much the same way and used the same tools and equipment. 

The second constant was that your life was short. Assuming you successfully survived the first few years of your life (and this, by the way, was no easy task), you could expect to live until the rip old age of 50.

Under such conditions it was appropriate to put a premium on learning because whatever you learned you could expect to utilize the remainder of your life.

In today's era of accelerating technological change, however, the equation has been flipped on its head. The shelf life of knowledge is growing ever shorter and we must realize that much of what we will learn will need to be unlearned shortly thereafter.

Society has not yet fully recognized the extent of this shift but it will have profound implications for how we educate ourselves and our children. I'd love to hear your ideas about: 1) Whether you agree with my premise; and 2) How you'd try to help society deal with this change. (One idea I have is that we must teach unlearning beginning in kindergarten.)

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The Future Requires Unlearning